Autonomous vehicles continue to be a strong bet in North American cities, and despite the opposition to Tesla in Austin, Waymo, a Google company, has now announced that it plans to conduct tests with its autonomous vehicles in New York City.
For now, Waymo assures that the vehicles will have a driver present, who will drive the vehicle in order to conquer the largest city in the U.S. Waymo stated that it has requested a license from the New York City Department of Transportation to operate autonomously with a trained specialist behind the wheel in Manhattan.
“Although we are not yet in New York full-time, we fully intend to bring our fully autonomous ridesharing service to the city in the future”, the company stated in a release. “We are working to achieve this important goal.”
Remember that if the authorization requested by Waymo receives the green light, Google’s company will be the first to conduct autonomous vehicle tests in the city of New York. State law currently prohibits a service like Waymo’s from operating without a driver. “We are committed to advocating for a change in state law that allows for the operation of an autonomous vehicle with no one behind the wheel”, said the company.
Waymo’s bet on expanding the robotaxi service has been consolidating in recent times, with Waymo One, the ride-hailing service, offering over 250,000 paid rides per week in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin, and the company preparing to arrive in 2026 in new U.S. cities such as Atlanta, Miami, and Washington.
