Waymo, the self-driving vehicle spin-off from Google, is expanding its autonomous ride-hailing service to San Francisco

fromThe Associated Press

August 24, 2021, 4:46 p.m.

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Waymo, the self-driving vehicle spin-off from Google, is expanding its autonomous ride-hailing service to San Francisco.

Selected “Trusted Tester” customers in the City by the Bay will be welcomed to ride in Jaguar I-Pace self-driving electric vehicles, the company said.

For the time being, the vehicles will have human substitute drivers on board. But at some point the company wants to drive the vehicles without them, as is the case now in the Phoenix area.

Waymo started the program with a few testers last week and is now expanding it, the company said. It wouldn’t tell how many vehicles are involved or when the human backups are scheduled to be pulled.

The approach is similar to what Waymo did in Phoenix when it launched a limited ride-hailing service in 2017. The company says it has offered thousands of fully autonomous rides on Metro Phoenix since October 2020.

People who wish to join the program can do so by downloading the Waymo One app.

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