Waymo is about to announce that its robocar ride-sharing program in Phoenix will dispense with its backup driver, according to a story in TheInformation.com. That would make it the first-ever commercial application of true self-driving technology.
The report cites two unnamed sources, apparently engineers unhappy with the fast pace that management has decreed for the rollout of the new service. The CEO of Waymo is John Krafcik, but the ultimate authorities are Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the heads of Alphabet, the holding company for Waymo and its big brother, Google.
Waymo declined to answer IEEE Spectrum’s request to confirm or deny the story. We’ll take that as a qualified “maybe.”
