🚙 WAYMO raises $2.25 billion - Alphabet's subsidiary 🤖

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Will we ever get to Level 5? Don’t know. But this company needs its own thread - it’s just raised $2.25 billion:

Today, Waymo is announcing our first external investment round, led by Silver Lake, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and Mubadala Investment Company. Additional investors in this initial $2.25 billion close include Magna International, Andreessen Horowitz, and AutoNation, as well as Alphabet.

Alphabet is the parent of Waymo.

(Source - Waypoint - The official Waymo blog: Waymo raises first external investment round)

It’s already testing with passengers in a Phoenix suburb in Arizona:

How does a Waymo car work?

An awesome TED talk by an ex-lead who then co-founded Aurora:

Some history:

2005 - Stanley (it won, then came second the next year):

Project Choffeur:

Lexus SUVs (used by many since then):

Firefly prototypes used - no steering wheels!

Then retired:

It’s using Fiat Chrysler Pacificas now:

Also Jaguar I-PACEs:

The trucks are here:

SDCs are here, fully autonomous or not:

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I read an article about a year ago now, Alphabet’s Waymo and GM’s Cruise were the two top self driving technologies in terms of average miles driven without human intervention. Tesla wasn’t even in the top 10, from what I recall.

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There’s an recent update to that blog

It basically says Waymo and Cruise are still top, there’s still a long way to go

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From this graph, looks like some of them have gotten worse last year :grin: