{"id":51951,"date":"2025-07-09T17:31:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T17:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/51951\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T17:31:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T17:31:08","slug":"self-driving-robotaxi-service-waymo-launches-nyc-pilot-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/51951\/","title":{"rendered":"Self-driving robotaxi service Waymo launches NYC pilot testing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Futuristic robotaxis are coming to Gotham \u2014 and could make the city\u2019s iconic yellow cabs a thing of the past.<\/p>\n

Driverless rideshare service Waymo, owned by Google parent Alphabet, deployed its fleet to New York City this week to begin mapping out the city roads \u2013 with humans still sitting behind the wheel while they await a change in state law to allow fully driverless riding. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re on the move in the Big Apple,\u201d the company posted on X Monday night<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019ve begun testing in New York \u2013 be sure to give us a wave and snap a pic if you see us in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

The California-based company deployed its fleet to New York City this week, but with humans still driving the vehicles instead of its self-driving software. Courtesy of Waymo<\/p>\n

Waymo will still need a \u201chuman safety operator\u201d behind the wheel if its testing application is approved, a DOT rep said. Bob Daemmrich\/ZUMA \/ SplashNews.com<\/p>\n

Waymo submitted its DOT application last month<\/a>, which will include a \u201chuman safety operator\u201d behind the wheel to comply with the state rules, a DOT rep said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are working hard to bring Waymo to New Yorkers in the future, starting with this testing and advocating for changes to state law,\u201d the rep said.<\/p>\n

A pair of state bills introduced in January<\/a> \u2013 both of which are stuck in committee \u2013 seek to overturn the matter.<\/p>\n

If approved, it would be the city\u2019s first testing fleet of autonomous vehicles, according to a Waymo rep \u2014 who added the service won\u2019t be providing rides to the public during testing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe data<\/a> to date shows that Waymo outperforms human drivers, significantly reducing the frequency of injury-causing traffic collisions,\u201d the Waymo rep added, claiming the service\u2019s trips result in 78% fewer injury-causing collisions, including 93% fewer that involve pedestrians, and 81% fewer that involve cyclists, compared to human-driven ride shares.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are working hard to bring Waymo to New Yorkers in the future, starting with this testing and advocating for changes to state law,\u201d a Waymo rep said. Bob Daemmrich\/ZUMA \/ SplashNews.com<\/p>\n

The arrival of robotaxis in New York City could also mean upending the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of taxi and ride share drivers. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the plan for potential joblessness of over 200,000 New Yorkers and the plan to keep one million riders a day safe?\u201d Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the NY Taxi Workers Alliance, told Fox 5<\/a> before testing began.<\/p>\n

The electric vehicles, equipped with self-driving technology, will be tasked this summer with mapping out the concrete jungle\u2019s terrain in Manhattan and Brooklyn \u2013 including Brooklyn Heights, DUMBO, Downtown Brooklyn and Boerum Hill \u2013 and use collected data to improve the artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

Waymo cars parked at a San Francisco, California facility in June 2025. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Jersey City and Hoboken will also be trekked through as part of the metro-area tour, the rep said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The company first manually drove through Manhattan in 2021, although that trip primarily focused on weather data collection.<\/p>\n

This time, the company\u2019s Waymo Driver technology will be collecting information to help its system navigate jaywalkers, cyclists, carriage horses, taxi cabs and street construction.<\/p>\n

The company first manually drove through Manhattan in 2021, although that trip primarily focused on weather data collection. Courtesy of Waymo<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have every intention of bringing our fully autonomous ride-hailing service to the city in the future,\u201d Waymo said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Waymo already completes about 250,000 fully driverless trips each week in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin and Atlanta, and is planning to launch its autonomous drivers in Miami later this year and Washington D.C. in 2026.<\/p>\n

\u2013Additional reporting by Taylor Herzlich.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Futuristic robotaxis are coming to Gotham \u2014 and could make the city\u2019s iconic yellow cabs a thing of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":51952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,1121,32898,5249,5248,405,403,7619,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-51951","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-brooklyn","10":"tag-department-of-transportation","11":"tag-manhattan","12":"tag-metro","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-new-york-city-life","16":"tag-newyork","17":"tag-newyorkcity","18":"tag-ny","19":"tag-nyc","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-us-news","26":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114824471564112079","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51951","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=51951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}