What will Waymo’s next steps be?

Many people ask this question, because Waymo is the company with the most experience in driving autonomous cars, and in some way it sets the trend in the market.

The thing about autonomous cars is that it is the story that never begins .They have been talking about them for more than 5 years as something immediate for the next year, and it seems that they will continue like this for some time. Among them is Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla.

And some who tried (they thought it was an easy thing to do) like Uber have already quit after losing a few hundred million dollars on the adventure.

Autonomous cars have the peculiarity that they carry people inside and they cannot play with their safety. And another fundamental issue is the total unpredictability of what can happen in the environment of a car when it moves on a road. The possibilities that can be presented are almost endless.

For that reason, the Waymo people have been working on the issue for more than 10 years and their cars have traveled millions of kilometers. That job hasn’t come for free, but after that time the company is valued at $ 175 billion. Of course, that valuation can vary downwards or upwards depending on whether they achieve economic results with their vehicles or not.

After a time of testing with its autonomous cars and a “safety” driver behind the wheel, Waymo now offers a fully autonomous taxi service without a safety driver in the city of Phoenix.

But Phoenix, although it is the most populous city in Arizona (almost 2 million people), is not one of the largest in the USA, and small when compared to many others.

For Waymo to take an important step and differentiate itself even more from the rest, it should offer its services in other larger and more complex cities to circulate his car.

That would give them a “plus” of differentiation within the group that leads autonomous cars.

But that is known better than I do by the company leaders who have already conducted tests in 25 US cities (including Las Vegas and San Francisco) in various weather conditions.

We will see what happens in this year 2021, but surely some will continue to advertise the autonomous car for the next two years. And in many years they maybe will finally get it right.