Waymo to start the Robotaxi driver in New York

The Robotaxis brave the notoriously hectic streets of New York, while Waymo wins the coveted approval to test its autonomous vehicles.

The autonomous driving sharing company obtained the first pilot permit in the city of New York. This allows the company to train its camera, Lidar and radar systems on the animated New York grid. Other autonomous vehicle companies, including the competitor Tesla, have made aggressive thrusts in the metropolitan region in a race for the possession of the market in major cities.

The permit allows Waymo to deploy eight vehicles (seen Jaguar I-Pace) in Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn until the end of September. Vehicles will be occupied by a security operator who will maintain constant contact with the steering wheel. Waymo is not approved to test with passengers under the city’s taxi and limousine license requirements, and had to submit additional plans to the city’s emergency services system and the Ministry of Transport to obtain approval. The company told Techcrunch that he planned to start testing his fleet “immediately”.

Last month, Waymo announced that he had plans for a launch of Robotaxi in Dallas in 2026, after the ironic deployment of Tesla Robotaxie, led by Elon Musk, at the start of the year. Waymo, a space leader, already exploits fleets in San Francisco, Austin, Phoenix and Los Angeles. For several years, Robotaxis companies have gradually been working with autonomous vehicle services in major cities (mainly California), but few have gone to the market.