Today the world welcomes Waymo, Google’s Alphabet’s newest company formed around self-driving cars! For some time now there have been rumours that Google’s self-driving car division was ready to spin off into its own company, the only questions was if Google would partner with an existing automaker or do it all in house.
In today’s announcement, Google confirmed that they would be partnering with Chrysler in the endeavour. According to John Krafcik, Waymo CEO, Google’s self-driving car project Waymo is a “self-driving tech company with mission to make it safe for people and things to get around”.
Check out their announcement video below.
Before you get too excited about your self-driving future, Google has not commissioned Chrysler to build a fleet of their pods, instead, Chrysler will be building a special version of the Pacifica Minivan. Google is still aiming for full level 5 autonomy, but in the near future those cars will still have traditional controls as well.
Too late, I’m already excited. This cannot come soon enough IMO. I like the name too.