Waymo Sets First Self-Driving Car Public Tests

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 12, 12:42PM EST · Published Apr 25, 4:57AM EDT

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Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) self-driving car unit Waymo says it is ready to begin tests with people outside its own employees. It asked for people to apply for its early rider program and become among the “first people in the world to take part” in the endeavor.

In a press release, the company stated:

Over the course of this trial, we’ll be accepting hundreds of people with diverse backgrounds and transportation needs who want to ride in and give feedback about Waymo’s self-driving cars. Rather than offering people one or two rides, the goal of this program is to give participants access to our fleet every day, at any time, to go anywhere within an area that’s about twice the size of San Francisco.

Waymo also said it would buy 500 Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. (NYSE: FCAU) Pacifica minivans so it could expand tests further.

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Waymo is in a race to become among the first car and technology companies to launch self-driving technology that is practical and safe enough to be used widely on public streets. Thirty companies have permits to test autonomous vehicles in California, just one sign of how crowed the field has become. Some companies, in particular Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA), claim they already have partially autonomous cars. Waymo is saying it has gone beyond that and that its new technology allows the riders the ability to leave control to technology to start and complete an entire trip.

Several of the world’s largest car companies also have set elaborate and expensive programs to run similar tests.

Waymo’s new program in Phoenix shows that it has advanced to a stage beyond where most other companies in the race are now.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.