Waymo pushes back its self-driving truck efforts to focus on ride hailing

Don’t expect to see many Waymo-powered autonomous big rigs in the near future. Waymo now plans to “push back” its driverless trucking efforts and shift its attention toward its One ride-hailing service. The move will help the company concentrate on making these self-driving taxis a “commercial success,” according to co-CEOs Dmitri Dolgov and Tekedra Mawakana.

Waymo justified the decision by pointing to “significant” growth in demand for its robotaxis in Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Francisco. It also noted rapid upgrades to Driver, the AI system that handles its autonomous cars. There’s “tremendous momentum” in One, the co-chiefs say, and the new strategy will help make the most of this trend.

The Alphabet-owned brand still intends to work with Daimler on self-driving semi trucks. It’s shifting most of its technical development toward Waymo One, but believes work on Driver (particularly for highway driving) will indirectly benefit trucking. There’s no updated timeline for when trucks may reach the roads, but TechCrunchunderstands only a handful of workers will lose jobs as a result of the transition. Most have taken other positions at Waymo.

Waymo started testing autonomous big rig trucks in 2017, with rapid expansions in 2019 …read more