According to Techcrunch, after months of testing, Waymo is expected to launch a self-driving taxi service in Nashville this year through a partnership with Lyft - a US transportation technology company. In the early stages, passengers will call for a car directly using the Waymo application. As the service expands, Waymo's self-driving cars will be integrated into the Lyft application to reach more users.
According to the cooperation plan, Lyft will undertake vehicle fleet management activities such as vehicle maintenance, charging infrastructure and parking operations through its subsidiary Flexdrive.
Waymo is currently operating commercial self-driving taxi services in many major cities of the United States, including Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix, San Francisco, Atlanta and Austin. In addition, the company is also testing self-driving cars in cities such as Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Orlando.
Waymo's deployment strategy in new markets usually takes place step by step. Initially, the company used driver-driven cars to map the city. Then, self-driving cars were tested with a safe driver sitting behind the wheel. In the final stage, Waymo conducted completely driverless testing, before officially opening a self-driving taxi service for the public.
The expansion of testing in Nashville shows that Waymo is accelerating the commercialization of self-driving car technology, in the context of large technology companies competing fiercely to dominate the smart transportation market in the US.
