Autonomous cars: Waymo leader teases ‘endless opportunities’ beyond taxis

Autonomous car technology could do far more than replace the taxi driver, a Waymo team leader suggested at an industry event this week. Waymo started life as Google’s autonomous car project. The company has been ferrying passengers around Phoenix, Arizona with its Uber-like Waymo One ride service.

Speaking at the three-day, live-streamed CoMotion LA event, Waymo’s infrastructure strategy lead Juan Pablo Soulier said that applications like these are just the beginning. During a panel discussion about the growing electric-vehicle market, an audience member asked whether the panelists had considered “fleets of smaller electric vehicles for micro-transit services,” supplementing larger transit and fueling the switch to sustainable transportation.

Soulier replied: “We’re building the world’s most experienced driver, this Waymo driver. This has different applications, from our people-moving Waymo One application to Waymo Via, which is focused on moving goods. But because we’re building this driver that can be applied across so many vehicle platforms and businesses, there’s definitely endless opportunities to explore on how and where we could actually apply this.”

The comments are an exciting teaser for how autonomous technology could power more than just cars. The basic system, which uses sensors and computers to move a car along […]

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