“Waymo wants to deploy a robotaxi service for the general public in parts of California as soon as possible,” reports the Los Angeles Times. “But that’s unlikely, the company says, because California says it has to offer the service for free.”
Last year, the California Public Utilities Commission allowed driverless “robotaxi” pilot programs in the state but banned permit-holders from charging fares. The ban is considered temporary but has no timeline. Some industry analysts say the uncertainty could put California’s reputation as the world leader in driverless technology at risk.
The free-or-nothing mandate makes no sense to Waymo, the driverless vehicle arm of Google’s Alphabet, or to other driverless vehicle start-ups hoping to establish themselves in a new industry that could produce the biggest change in ground transportation since the invention of the automobile. Waymo requires a “commercial path forward” before it can offer Californians the kind of driverless taxi service it’s already running across 100 square miles in Phoenix, according to George Ivanov, Waymo’s head of policy development and regulatory initiatives…
In July, Waymo began a commission-approved pilot program to ferry Waymo and Google employees and guests through parts of Silicon Valley in driverless cars for free. Waymo doesn’t need fare money to fund operations — Alphabet is an enormous profit machine, and holds more than $100 billion in cash. But Ivanov explained that experimenting with customer response to different fare structures is essential to building out the robotaxi business, which would be like Uber or Lyft but without a human driver.
of this story at Slashdot.
Source:: Slashdot