Waymo

Waymo LLC

 is a self-driving technology development company. It is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. Waymo originated as a project of Google before it became a stand-alone subsidiary in December 2016.

In April 2017, Waymo started a limited trial of a self-driving taxi service in Phoenix, Arizona. On December 5, 2018 the service launched its first commercial self-driving car service called "Waymo One", where users in the Phoenix metropolitan area can use an app to request the service.

 Waymo unveiled new sensors and chips that are less expensive to manufacture, cameras that improve visibility, and wipers to clear the lidar system. Waymo manufactures a suite of self-driving hardware developed in-house. These sensors and hardware—enhanced vision system, improved radar, and laser-based lidar—reduce Waymo's dependence on suppliers. The in-house production system allows Waymo to efficiently integrate its technology to the hardware. In the beginning of the self-driving car program, the company spent $75,000 for each lidar system from Velodyne. As of 2017, that cost was down approximately 90 percent, due to Waymo designing its own version of lidar.

Waymo officials said the cars the company uses are built for full autonomy with sensors that give 360 degree views and lasers that detect objects up to 300 meters away.^[18] Short-range lasers detect and focus on objects near the vehicle, while radar is used to see around vehicles and track objects in motion.^[18] The interior of these cars include buttons for riders to control certain functions: "Help", "Lock", "Pull over", and "Start ride".

Waymo engineers have also created a program called Carcraft, a virtual world where Waymo can simulate driving conditions. The simulator is named after the video game World of Warcraft. With Carcraft, 25,000 virtual self-driving cars navigate through models of Austin, Texas, Mountain View, California, Phoenix, Arizona, and other cities. As of 2018, Waymo has driven more than 5 billion miles in the virtual world.