025 will be a big year for Tokyo’s transportation as Waymo begins testing autonomous vehicle technology. This is an important establishment for the Alphabet-owned
Robotaxi company as it is the first time the cars will be tested outside of the US.
This strategy is all part of Waymo’s “road trips” development project that tests autonomous vehicles in different environments as each city has its challenges. For example, the challenges that Waymo’s autonomous robotaxi will face in Tokyo, such as left-hand driving and, of course, its crowded environment.
As of this moment, the Waymo vehicles have been tested in twelve different cities in the US, each city coming with different weather conditions such as extreme heat in Death Valley California, or a rainy habit in Miami.
The autonomous vehicles were also tested in Las Vegas, Washington D.C., Buffalo, and Seattle. How the Waymo testing goes is that first they bring a small fleet of cars into a new city and with a driver they start mapping the area and prepare the routes. After that is done they will be testing the car with a driver behind the wheel in order to see how the car reacts to outside triggers and only after the car has passed those stages, the car can be used autonomously.
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In Tokyo, Waymo Cars will also partner with GO, which is a taxi-hailing app, and Nihon Kotsu another taxi company. Even more so, the latter will oversee the management and servicing of the Waymo vehicles.
At first, Nihon Kotsu drivers will be the ones that map the capital, including Minato, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Chiyoda, Chūō, Kōtō, and Shinagawa. Tech Crunch also reported that the Japanese company is working with Waymo to teach their drivers how they can operate autonomous cars.
It is also worth mentioning that this announcement came only a few days after GM said that they would be scraping the Cruise Robotaxi program. This decision also stopped the launch of the driverless ride-hailing service in Japan with Honda as its partner. Back in 2023 Honda, cruise, and GM announced that they would be launching a robotaxi service in Tokyo by the end of 2026. Yet, their project will not be happening.
By
Eva Robinson
•
December 17, 2024 8:10 AM
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