A self-driving Jaguar I-Pace may soon be sharing the crosswalk with you.<\/p>\n
Waymo, Alphabet\u2019s autonomous vehicle division, just hit \u201capply\u201d on a permit to begin testing its robotaxis in Manhattan, TechCrunch reported<\/a>\u2014the latest stop in its slow but steady quest for world domination (or at least better traffic navigation). If approved by the NYC Department of Transportation, this would mark the city\u2019s first autonomous vehicle testing program, though the cars will still require a trained human driver ready to grab the wheel. For now.<\/p>\n New York isn\u2019t exactly known for making things easy and when it comes to robotaxis<\/a>, it\u2019s even more of a maze than Canal Street. State law currently mandates that a human operator keep at least one hand on the steering wheel. That\u2019s one major (and literal) roadblock to going fully driverless, which is a goal Waymo hopes to achieve by pushing for a legislative rewrite.<\/p>\n Still, the company says it\u2019s committed to earning its stripes here. Waymo is already laying the groundwork by partnering with local orgs like Mothers Against Drunk Driving New York, Bronx Community College and the National Federation of the Blind, as part of its \u201cwe\u2019re the good guys\u201d charm offensive.<\/p>\n If the test is greenlit, Waymo\u2019s sleek, sensor-studded electric vehicles would roam Manhattan with a specialist on board, collecting data and flexing their AI muscles in one of the most complex driving environments on the planet. Taxis, food carts<\/a>, double-parked trucks and rogue pigeons<\/a>? Welcome to your final boss level, Waymo.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t the company\u2019s first NYC rodeo. Waymo last touched down in 2021 to map and weather-test the city, sans self-driving mode. But it\u2019s since expanded rapidly elsewhere, offering more than 250,000 paid driverless rides per week in cities like Phoenix, Austin, L.A.<\/a> and San Francisco. Meanwhile, rivals like Cruise have bowed out after high-profile missteps.<\/p>\n No word yet on when New Yorkers might actually hail a Waymo without a driver. But if the company gets its way (and changes the law), the age of yelling at your cab driver could soon be over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A self-driving Jaguar I-Pace may soon be sharing the crosswalk with you. Waymo, Alphabet\u2019s autonomous vehicle division, just…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,11234,405,403,11235,5226,5225,5228,5227,1164,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-10280","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-categories-travel","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-news-transport-travel","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkcity","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-travel","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114737444536459398","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}