I'm in the middle seat of a Chrysler Pacifica minivan, heading north on Dobson Road in Chandler, Arizona, when I notice we may have taken a wrong turn. Under normal circumstances, I would just lean forward and ask the driver for an explanation. There is, after all, no driver to ask. Last October, Alphabet's self-driving subsidiary Waymo emailed its customers in the suburbs of Phoenix to let them know that "completely driverless Waymo cars are on the way." For several years, Waymo has offered its autonomous taxi service to a small group of people, but the rides typically included a safety driver behind the steering wheel. Now, Waymo is saying more of those rides will take place sans safety driver, a sign that the company is growing confident in the accuracy of its technology.

Neha hops to the grocery store. They're all part of the Waymo early rider program we launched last April. Today, over 400 riders with diverse transportation needs use Waymo every day, at any time, to ride all around the Phoenix area. Their feedback helps us understand how fully self driving cars fit into their daily lives. One year in, our early rider program and our extensive on-road testing is helping us build the world's most experienced driver.

This car is all yours, with no one up front," the pop-up notification from the Waymo app reads. "This ride will be different. With no one else in the car, Waymo will do all the driving. Moments later, an empty Chrysler Pacifica minivan appears and navigates its way to my location near a park in Chandler, the Phoenix suburb where Waymo has been testing its autonomous vehicles since 2016. More than a dozen journalists experienced driverless rides in 2017 on a closed course at Waymo's testing facility in Castle; and Steve Mahan, who is legally blind, took a driverless ride in the company's Firefly prototype on Austin's city streets way back in 2015. But this driverless ride is different -- and not just because it involved an unprotected left-hand turn, busy city streets or that the Waymo One app was used to hail the ride.

Arizona Avenue from Waymo's self-driving-car showroom sits the Crowne Plaza San Marcos hotel, which is allegedly haunted. According to employees and guests, the ghost can move plates, knock phones off cradles, even--helpfully!--fold clothes. I passed this knowledge on to a Lyft driver, who retorted, "I didn't know that, but to be honest with you, what isn't haunted?" Every western boomtown has its ghosts, each wave of fresh pavement and new money disturbing the traces of what lived and died there before. Chandler, just southeast of Phoenix, has added 220,000 of its 250,000 residents since 1980.

A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. Waymo self-driving cars are seen Nov. 28, 2018, in Chandler. Emergency crews directed the afternoon traffic around the wrecked cars and fire engines at McQueen and Pecos roads in the Phoenix suburb in mid-October. The Chrysler Pacifica minivan -- equipped with former Google car company Waymo's self-driving vehicle technology -- approached the scene tepidly, while dozens of other vehicles merged into the turn lanes far sooner. A human driver in this situation might try to make eye contact with the drivers already in the crowded turn lane, or even wave, to try to cut in. But drivers around a Waymo van never know if the car is driving itself, or if the test driver behind the wheel has control as they maneuver through school zones, shopping centers and freeways across the southeast Phoenix metro area, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Waymo, the frontrunner in the self-driving car industry, today announces the moment everyone has been waiting for: It is officially "launching" a robo-taxi service in Chandler, Arizona, wherein riders will use an app to hail the vehicles to take them anywhere in an 80 to 100 square mile area, for a price. "Today, we're taking the next step in our journey with the introduction of our commercial self-driving service, Waymo One," Waymo CEO John Krafcik wrote in a blog post. The banner Waymo is unfurling, though, is tattered by caveats. Waymo One will only be available to the 400 or so people already enrolled in Waymo's early rider program, which has been running in the calm, sunny Phoenix suburb of Chandler for about 18 months. More glaringly, the cars will have a human behind the wheel, there to take control in case the car does something it shouldn't.

Waymo could be one step closer to launching its own ride-hailing service. The driverless car unit of Google parent company Alphabet is eyeing the launch of the world's first self-driving car service as soon as next month, Bloomberg reported, citing sources close to the situation. The service will operate under a name that's different from Waymo and compete head-to-head with Uber and Lyft. Waymo is eyeing the launch of the world's first self-driving car service as soon as next month. A Waymo spokesperson declined to confirm to Bloomberg whether or not the service was in development, as well as the timing of the launch. Waymo expects to trial the service among dozens or hundreds of riders in the suburbs of Phoenix once it launches in the next few weeks.

Waymo is giving a rare behind-the-scenes look at its self-driving car program. In a new blog post, Google's autonomous vehicle unit detailed what goes on at its operations center in Arizona when its fleet of self-driving cars aren't on the road. The firm has a full staff of fleet technicians, fleet dispatch, fleet response and rider support employees that inspect Waymo vehicles and communicate with riders, among other things. Waymo recently doubled its operations center in Chandler, Arizona and test autonomous vehicles in the state. 'With our fleet technicians, dispatchers, responders, and rider support agents always hard at work, our self-driving cars can move our riders safely from point A to point B everyday,' Ellice Perez, Waymo's head of operations, wrote in the blog post.

Google's self driving car spinoff Waymo has been learning to deal with emergency vehicles in a special test session with police cars. The team worked with Chandler Police and Fire to put on a special testing day. Over the course of a days and night the vehicles -- equipped with a powerful suite of sensors -- observed police cars, motorcycles, ambulances, firetrucks, and even a few undercover vehicles as they trailed, passed and led the self-driving cars. Waymo's vehicles -- equipped with a powerful suite of sensors -- observed police cars, motorcycles, ambulances, firetrucks, and even a few undercover vehicles as part of the Arizona test. 'Whether it's the high shrills of a fire truck or the flashing lights of a police cruiser, it's important for every driver to recognize the telltale signs of an emergency vehicle,' Waymo said.

Avis is teaming up with Waymo on a self-driving car program. The partnership aims to support Waymo's ever-growing fleet of autonomous vehicles and its early rider program, which has a public trial in Phoenix. Under the agreement, Avis will provide support and maintenance services for Waymo's program at its car rental locations. Avis is teaming up with Waymo on a self-driving car program. The partnership aims to support Waymo's ever-growing fleet of autonomous vehicles and its early rider program, which has a public trial in Phoenix Under the multiyear deal, Waymo's cars will receive automotive services such as cleanings, oil changes and tire rotations and will also be allowed to part the autonomous vehicles at Avis locations.