Google parent company to invest another $5 billion into Waymo
The injection of funds will see the self-driving car unit of Alphabet continue its work in the autonomous space.
Alphabet, Google’s (GOOGL) parent company, today announced another round of investments into its self-driving car unit. The investment is to the tune of $5 billion, with more information expected in the Security and Exchange Commission filing.
Source: Waymo
Alphabet reported its Q2 2024 earnings today, where the company revealed another investment in its self-driving car unit, Waymo. The investment comes in at $5 billion, with the purpose being to continue to build the unit into the “world’s leading autonomous driving company,” finance chief Ruth Porat said.
Back in March 2022, co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said that the company was ready to launch driverless delivery of vehicles in San Francisco. In today’s conference call, CEO Sundar Pichai said that Waymo provides 50,000 weekly trips in San Francisco and Phenoix.
A CNBC report notes that Waymo raised $2.25 billion in its first round of funding in 2020 and another $2.5 billion in 2021.
This push for autonomous vehicles by Alphabet comes at a time when its self-driving car competitor Tesla is preparing to launch its own Robotaxi service. In Tesla’s (TSLA) Q2 2024 earnings report, the company revealed that the Robotaxi event is scheduled for October 10, an event that had been set for August 8.
For more on Google and the other companies reporting this quarter, check out our Q2 2024 page. You’ll also find more information on self-driving vehicles in our Electric Vehicles topic.
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replySam Chandler posted a new article, Google parent company to invest another $5 billion into Waymo
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Finally rode in a Waymo last week. Pretty fucking cool and premium experience, that does work now.
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Do you think they'll eventually do like some sort of small bus/regular bus that is self-driving but not on a regular route and time table? Like you just use an app to set your starting location and destination, then it chooses a bus automatically to pick you up along with other users that have roughly the same destination and/or along the way?
My local public transit has those small bus that pick you up at a nearby stop but can drop you off to any other stop in a predefined zone (usually a big bigger than a district) but they're still driven by human and the zone restriction make it a bit painful since you have to use other buses on regular routes to do inter-zone travels and they don't really guarantee you'll arrive close enough and before the next bus passes.-
Why not, feels possible. But it also feels far off or a different brand. After riding, it definitely felt like and was charged like a premium experience. I think they could go cheaper in cost but why until there is competition?
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