Waymo LLC Chief Executive John Krafcik is leaving the company after more than five years, bringing an end to the former auto executive's leadership of Google parent Alphabet Inc.'s driverless car effort. The company said Friday that it is promoting its chief technology and operating officers, Dmitri Dolgov and Tekedra Mawakana, to lead a decade-old effort to make self-driving cars a reality. They will share the title of co-chief executive. Under Mr. Krafcik, Waymo broadened its business beyond years of mapping roads and designing software to begin running robotaxis around a segment of Phoenix. He also led Waymo's conversion into an independent subsidiary of Alphabet and raised an external investment round of $3.25 billion.

A self-driving car that collided with and injured a motorcyclist was caused by the human back-up driver. Waymo, the autonomous car division of Google's parent firm Alphabet, revealed the human driver took control of the vehicle before crashing last month. According to Waymo's simulations after the accident, the car would have slowed down and avoided a collision if left to its own devices. Waymo has admitted the fault of the incident lies with the driver and not with its technology. Waymo, the autonomous car division of Google's parent firm Alphabet, revealed the human driver took control of the vehicle before crashing last month The unfortunate incident occurred when the driver felt the need to take control of the Waymo minivan and merge into the outside lane from the centre lane on the highway.

Self-driving car spinoff Waymo says the technology behind its new autonomous vehicles is safe. Waymo's CEO says they will buy up to 20,000 electric vehicles from Jaguar Land Rover to help realize their vision for a robotic ride-hailing service. SAN FRANCISCO -- Later this year, Alphabet's self-driving car company, Waymo, plans an historic first: offering a self-driving, ride-hailing fleet to the general public in the city of Phoenix. After nearly a decade of building and testing its autonomous cars -- which just hit the 10 million-mile milestone -- the former Google Car Project is about to hit start on what eventually will be self-driving car services in a few of the 25 U.S. in which it currently tests. So what's it like to hand over your daily driving chores to a robot?

Waymo is ready for a dramatic next step after eight years of preparation, most of it as the Google Self-Driving Car project. The Alphabet Inc. unit has begun testing autonomous vehicles on public roads without human safety drivers at the wheel, and early next year will make its robotic chauffeurs available to Phoenix-area commuters. Speaking at the Web Summit conference in Lisbon, Portugal, Waymo CEO John Krafcik said on Tuesday that company technicians are already hailing its Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans in and around Phoenix via a mobile app and leaving it to the artificial intelligence operating the vehicles to figure out how to get to requested destinations. Within a few months, Waymo vans loaded with laser LiDAR, radar, cameras, computers, AI and no human safety drivers will pick up Arizonans registered in its "Early Riders" program. People will get to use our fleet of on-demand vehicles to do anything from commute to work, get home from a night out, or run errands," Krafcik said. "Getting access will be as easy as using an app; just tap a button and Waymo will come to you, and take you where you want to go." Google's push to perfect driverless cars, stretching back to 2009, ignited a tech race in the auto industry that represents the biggest change in personal transportation since horses were replaced with horseless carriages more than a century ago. But Waymo has to move fast to lock in its early-mover status as autonomous vehicle programs at dozens of companies, ranging from General Motors to BMW to Uber to Tesla to Baidu, race to catch up and commercialize their own driverless tech. The Alphabet company appears to be first to operate an autonomous fleet without safety drivers, a transition that keeps it ahead of fast-moving rivals, at least for now. "We recently surveyed 3,000 adults across the United States, asking them when they expected to see self-driving vehicles – ones without a person in the driver's seat – on their roads.

U.S. drivers' fears of fully autonomous (self-driving) vehicles has risen in the past several months according to a new survey by AAA. SAN FRANCISCO -- Waymo's self-driving mission is about to mushroom. The Alphabet-owned autonomous car company announced Thursday that it is significantly ramping up its partnership with Fiat Chrysler and over time will add up to 62,000 Pacifica Hybrid minivans to its fleet. That's a significant bump from a January announcement in which Waymo, which started out as Google's self-driving car project in 2009, said it would add "thousands" of new FCA minivans. The news speaks to the quickening pace of Waymo's development of fully self-driving vehicles, which have been testing around the Phoenix area for more than a year.

Self-driving cars have gotten so advanced in recent years that many proponents believe humans should be banned from driving altogether. But the boss of Google's Waymo, which is widely considered to be the leader in autonomous vehicle testing, doesn't agree. At a media event in New York City, Waymo CEO John Krafcik was asked whether he believed the rise of self-driving cars would eventually remove the need for human drivers. 'Good heavens, no,' Krafcik told Jalopnik. John Krafcik, the CEO of Waymo, stands with the Jaguar I-Pace vehicle on Tuesday.

Google-owned Waymo announces a deal with Jaguar to buy 20,000 I-Pace Jaguars and turn them into a self-driving car fleet. NEW YORK -- Waymo, the company that grew of out of Google's self-driving car project, announced a deal to buy up to 20,000 electric cars over the next two years, a move that shows the scope of its ambition when it comes to driverless ride-hailing services. More: 401(k): What stocks, industries are vulnerable in a trade war? More: Heineken pulls'Lighter is Better' commercial after some call it'racist' The company said it planned to buy the electric version of a Jaguar SUV, the I-Pace, to create its fleet of cars. The vehicles would then be fitted with components to make them capable of piloting themselves without a driver. The company says the fleet would be capable of handling 1 million rides a day.

It seems the novelty of riding in a driverless car wears off quickly, if promotional footage from Google's Waymo is to be believed. Members of the public taking part in its Early Rider program in Arizona were recently invited to take trips in its now fully automated minivans. After their initial excitement wears off, the video clip shows them playing with their phones, taking selfies and even falling asleep. Waymo's first publicly available ride-hailing service is expected to be unveiled in Phoenix later this year, after the state gave the plans the go-ahead. Members of the public taking part in its Early Rider program in Arizona were recently invited to take trips in its now fully automated minivans.