Waymo to expand ridership with $5.6 billion investment
The partnership led by Alphabet and supported by a host of corporations including Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity, Perry Creek, Silver Lake, Tiger Global, and T. Rowe Price has yielded an oversubscribed investment round of $5.6 billion for Waymo One ride-hailing service. Thanks to this investment, Waymo services will continue to expand across major US cities in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. Leveraging its partnership with Uber, Waymo hopes to expand to Austin and Atlanta by 2025. This means that the oversubscribed financing is even slightly higher than announced in July – at that time the figure was five billion dollars.
Waymo reported that fully autonomous freeway operations have been initiated in Phoenix and San Francisco, providing over 100,000 paid weekly trips.
The achievement will see Waymo upgrade its AI-powered autonomous driving system called ‘Waymo Driver.’ This will enable the influx of a wide range of AI-powered business applications and products, providing value to the autonomous vehicle ecosystem.
Commenting on the investment, Co-CEO Silver Lake, Egon Durban, said: “While AI is only just beginning to capture the public imagination, Waymo has been working to bring its endless possibilities to the world of physical transportation for years.” It is envisaged that with this investment, Waymo customers will continue to enjoy seamless rides with the newly introduced 6th-generation Waymo Driver.
With this, Waymo seeks to enable the safety and mobility benefits of the Waymo Driver to more places while enhancing operational capabilities. The improved Waymo Driver system will pave the way for Waymo service to operate in more complex environments through road trips to cities like Buffalo, New York, and Washington D.C.
Author: Abdulwaliy Oyekunle
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