Waymo launches its fully driverless taxi service in Phoenix

Two years after the Alphabet-owned Waymo launched a limited self-driving taxi service in the Metro Phoenix, Arizona, area (and two years after people started attacking the autonomous cars), the company has kicked off a fully driverless car service in and around Phoenix. Whereas in 2018 passengers would be assuaged by the site of a human in the driver seat, ready to take over in case of an emergency, the newly retooled robot taxi service lacks those human attendants. As Ars Technica notes, this is two years behind schedule for the autonomous mobility company, who initially promised a driverless taxi experience at the end of 2018. Efficacy of self-driving car claims aside, that was the same year that Uber had to suspend its own self-driving car testing in Arizona after one of their test cars (with attendant at the wheel) hit and killed a pedestrian. What did launch in 2018 was the aforementioned Waymo One service, which was only available to research testers previously enrolled with Waymo. So the technology wasn't there yet, but it appears Waymo is more confident this time around.