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Autonomous vehicles

Autonomous vehicles
Waymo takes its robotaxis to freeways in three cities
Waymo has begun offering freeway driving routes in three major United States cities in its driverless robotaxis. The rides will be available on freeways across the San Francisco Bay Area, Phoenix and Los Angeles, “when a freeway route is meaningfully faster”. The Alphabet-owned company also plans to expand the feature to other locations like Austin and Atlanta in the future. Before this, the driverless taxis have taken passengers on smaller highways and side streets. The new expansion will mark the first time that the vehicles will take payment from public riders to go on freeways with higher speed limits. “Freeway driving is one of those things that’s very easy to learn, but very hard to master when we’re talking about full autonomy without a human driver as a backup, and at scale,” Waymo co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov said at a press event ahead of the announcement. “It took time to do it properly.” The Waymo vehicles will typically travel up to a freeway’s posted speed of around 65mph, according to the company. The company said it collaborated with officials in the areas to ensure the vehicles were safe. “This experience, reinforced by comprehensive testing as well as extensive operational preparation, supports
Autonomous vehicles
Waymo announces Steve Fieler as new CFO
Self-driving ride share company, Waymo, has welcomed Steve Fieler as its new CFO. This comes as Waymo, which is owned by Alphabet, is bringing its robotaxi service into more markets with further plans for 2026. The company is also entering its next phase, which could include seeking additional outside investment. “Steve's extensive experience will be instrumental in guiding us through this next chapter,” Waymo said in a blog post. “He has a remarkable track record of helping companies—from early-stage ventures to global enterprises—scale, transform, and achieve financial success.” Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said this was a pivotal moment in the company’s history and thanked former CFO Elisa de Martel for the impact she made over the past three years. Steve was a key member of Google’s CFO team, where he served as President, Planning, BizOps, Investments, and Investor Relations. He was also CFO at HP, and Business Finance Office for Google’s Platforms and Ecosystem unit, responsible for products including Android and Chrome. During the third quarter, Alphabet reported a decline in revenue from US$388 million to US$344 million in its “Other Bets” category, which includes Waymo. Currently, Waymo offers s
Autonomous vehicles
Lyft shares soar following Waymo partnership
Uber rival Lyft has seen its stock rise following the announcement of its partnership with autonomous car company Waymo. The new partnership will see riders be able to hail Waymo rides in Nashville through the Waymo app, and in late 2026, riders will be able to use the Lyft app to match with a Waymo vehicle. It will also leverage Lyft’s proprietary integrated fleet management services through its Flexdrive subsidiary, providing end-to-end fleet management. “Waymo has proven that its autonomous technology works at scale. When combined with Lyft's customer-obsession and world-class fleet management capabilities, it's two great tastes that go great together,” Lyft CEO David Risher said. “Lyft’s extensive fleet management capabilities through Flexdrive make them an ideal partner for expanding to Nashville,” Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said. Following this announcement, Lyft’s share price rose 13.3% during Wednesday's United States trade, bringing Lyft’s share price to its highest point since May 2022. Governor of Tennessee, Bill Lee, said he looks forward to seeing Waymo’s launch in the state. "By leveraging private sector technologies like Waymo's fully autonomous vehicles, we're exploring possibilities we coul
Autonomous vehicles
Baidu and Lyft partner to bring robotaxis to Europe
Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company Baidu will be deploying driverless cars across Europe through a partnership with ride-sharing platform Lyft. If approved, the driverless vehicles could be on the road in Germany and the U.K. in 2026, with thousands to follow across Europe in the following years. The robotaxi that will be on the roads in Baidu’s Apollo Go, which the company's co-founder, chairman and CEO, Robin Li, said will be a significant milestone. “This collaboration represents our commitment to making autonomous mobility accessible worldwide while working with local partners who understand their communities,” Li said. “By integrating Baidu's cutting-edge autonomous driving technology with Lyft's platform reach and operational expertise, we're excited to deliver safer, greener, and more efficient mobility solutions to more users." Lyft CEO, David Risher, said the partnership is about creating a great customer experience and bringing all the benefits of autonomous vehicles to Europeans. "It's part of our hybrid network approach, where AVs and human drivers work together to provide customer-obsessed options for riders,” he said. “And importantly, we're committed to working hand-in-hand with local
Autonomous vehicles
Uber says it's ready with driverless taxis for UK
Uber has said it is "ready to go" now with driverless taxis in the United Kingdom, despite delays in governmental approval for completely autonomous cars. While the previous Conservative government had driverless vehicles on track to be "set to be on roads by 2026", the new Labour government is looking towards the latter end of 2027 instead. While limited self-driving is already permitted in the U.K., a human driver still must be at the wheel and responsible for the vehicle. "We are working quickly and will implement self-driving vehicle legislation in the second half of 2027", the Department for Transport said in a statement. “We are also exploring options for short-term trials and pilots to create the right conditions for a thriving self-driving sector.” Speaking to the BBC, Andrew Macdonald, senior vice president of mobility at Uber, said they were ready to launch driverless options for ride sharing as soon as the rules and regulations were in place. "We're ready to launch robotaxis in the U.K. as soon as the regulatory environment is ready for us," he said. Uber is working on partnerships with 18 automated car tech companies, including the U.K. AI firm Wayve, and is already offering automated rides in the

Autonomous vehicles
Toyota partners with Waymo for next-gen autonomous cars
Carmaker Toyota and Google's Waymo have announced the early workings of a partnership aimed at accelerating autonomous driving systems development and deployment. As part of the collaboration, Toyota will provide its Woven software and mobility solutions and integrate them with Waymo’s autonomous tech to advance next-generation personally owned vehicles (POVs). Toyota says this involvement builds on its longstanding focus on reducing traffic accidents through integrated research in human-centric design, vehicle safety systems and smart infrastructure. The company’s Toyota Safety Sense (TSS), a suite of safety technologies deployed globally since 2017, has had a modicum of success across the globe, including reducing rear-end collisions by 90%, and this new deal seeks to build on a focus of safety and reliability. Waymo CEO Tekedra Mawakana says the company's mission is to be the world's most trusted driver," Mawakana said. "This requires global partners like Toyota that share our commitment to improving road safety and expanding accessible transportation. "We look forward to exploring this strategic partnership, incorporating their vehicles into our ride-hailing fleet and bringing the magic of Waymo's autonomous
Autonomous vehicles
Gear shift: competition intensifies in robotaxi sector
Self-driving taxis have gone from fantasy to reality in recent years - and now, they could be coming to a city near you. While Alphabet-owned Waymo pushes forward with sweeping expansion plans, competitors including Amazon’s Zoox, Tesla, and Baidu’s Apollo Go are threatening to disrupt a rapidly growing sector. The global robotaxi market’s value is projected to reach US$38.9 billion by 2030, according to Research and Markets.Waymo's road rulesWaymo has announced sweeping plans to expand both domestically and internationally this year. It currently operates robotaxis in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix, and this month opened a waitlist to offer self-driving rides through Uber in Austin. According to Waymo, the company completed four million paid robotaxi trips in 2024. Waymo said in December that it would begin testing its robotaxis in Tokyo in early 2025. This will be Waymo’s first venture outside the United States, as well as its first in a left-hand traffic region. The company will partner with Japanese taxi operator Nihon Kotsu and taxi app GO to test its self-driving Jaguar I-PACE vehicles as part of their fleets. “While we look forward to bringing the life-saving benefits of the Waymo Driver global, w
Autonomous vehicles
BYD partners with DeepSeek on driver assistance system
Chinese car manufacturer BYD will develop self-driving technology in partnership with DeepSeek, as it aims to add driver assistance features to almost all of its vehicles. BYD said it would incorporate an advanced driver assistance system, known as God’s Eye, into 21 of its models from this week at no additional cost. God’s Eye can monitor road hazards using sensors, radar, and cameras, and will be capable of self-driving on motorways. God’s Eye “will mark a new era when all customers can access smart driving,” said BYD founder Wang Chuanfu. “We have been adopting a strategy — fewer words, more deeds — over the past years in our research and development,” said Wang. “BYD has a firm belief in smart driving and has been unswervingly delving into this area.” The God's Eye program will be included in three of BYD’s low-cost vehicles, such as the Seagull, which is priced from CN¥69,800 (A$15,200). BYD will integrate artificial intelligence from Chinese company DeepSeek into an advanced version of God’s Eye. DeepSeek found fame with the release of its first free chatbot last month, which briefly sunk AI-related stocks like Nvidia due to DeepSeek’s low cost of development. Chinese car companies Geely and Great Wall have
Autonomous vehicles
Uber, Nvidia join forces for autonomous driving tech
Uber Technologies, Inc. and NVIDIA are collaborating on new solutions to support the development of AI-powered autonomous driving technology. The partnership, which was unveiled at CES 2025, is expected to accelerate the journey to achieving driverless technology, according to Bank of America. “Generative AI will power the future of mobility, requiring both rich data and very powerful compute,” said Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber. “By working with NVIDIA, we are confident that we can help supercharge the timeline for safe and scalable autonomous driving solutions for the industry.” Uber is set to adopt NVIDIA’s new Cosmos platform, purpose-built for developing physical AI systems like robots and autonomous vehicles. Cosmos is expected to eliminate cost and resource barriers, helping democratise access to tools for developing physical AI. The ride-share giant is also set to adopt NVIDIA supercomputing platform DGX, which is a high-performance, fully-managed AI platform preconfigured with the latest NVIDIA architecture and software. Providing term-length flexibility and machine learning pipeline portability on an open platform, DGX Cloud delivers day-one productivity and maximum resource utilisation for AI model