Waymo is bringing its self-driving cars back to San Francisco streets for testing. TechCrunch has obtained pictures of the Waymo Chrysler Pacifica autonomous test vehicle on SF city roads, and Waymo confirmed that it is indeed bringing test vehicles back to one of the first spots where it ever tested AVs in the first place.
A Waymo spokesperson provided the following statement about its latest-generation test vehicle arriving in San Francisco:
San Francisco was one of the first cities where we tested our self-driving cars, dating back to 2009 when we traveled everything from Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge. Now that we have the world’s first fleet of fully self-driving cars running in Arizona, the hilly and foggy streets of San Francisco will give our cars even more practice in different terrains and environments.
Waymo has one of the most extensive testing programs of anyone in the industry, in geographic terms; the former Google self-driving car company has now tested its autonomous vehicles in 24 cities across the U.S. Its goal with these tests is to expose its fleet to a wide variety of road and weather conditions, as well as to variances in local traffic patterns and human driving habits.
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In San Francisco, it’ll have the chance to deal with fog, of course, and with roads with steep inclines, as well as fairly dense peak traffic, ample bike, scooter and pedestrian activity, frequent ongoing road work and a lot more.
Waymo revealed last year that its test fleet in Arizona now includes fully driverless vehicles, with no safety driver behind the wheel at all. The cars there can range across the entire area Waymo has set up around Chandler, Arizona for picking up and dropping off members of its pilot program of its forthcoming fully autonomous ride-hailing service.