Waymo, Alphabet's robotaxi company, announced on Thursday that it has begun deploying its sixth-generation autonomous driving system on the Ojai model and providing driverless taxi services to company employees. The Ojai model is based on a platform owned by Chinese automaker Geely.
By upgrading its autonomous driving technology and expanding its fleet, Waymo hopes to further expand its lead in the U.S. market and enhance user stickiness. Waymo said that the sixth-generation Waymo Driver system uses lower-cost components and can handle bad weather better than previous generations of systems.
Satish Jeyachandran, Waymo's vice president of engineering, said in a statement that the sixth-generation system will be "the core engine driving the company's next phase of expansion."
Waymo currently provides Ojai vehicle services to employees and their guests in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, and will gradually expand to more cities, with plans to open rides to the public later this year.
The deployment of this new generation of driverless taxis comes at a time when Waymo is accelerating to consolidate its leading position in the U.S. market. At the same time, the company is also promoting testing and commercialization in overseas markets.
Waymo currently provides fully driverless taxi services in six markets in the United States and plans to launch operations in London later this year. Potential competitors, including Amazon's Zoox and Tesla, are testing their self-driving systems in the United States but have yet to launch fully driverless ride-hailing services on a large scale.
Waymo spokesperson Sandy Karp claimed: "Multi-model mixed operation has always been our norm, including the previous transition from the Pacifica model equipped with the fourth-generation system to the I-PACE model equipped with the fifth-generation system."
Compared with existing models, Ojai has a more square body design, lower entry threshold, and higher interior space, but its overall footprint is basically the same as Jaguar I-PACE.
As its business expands, Waymo vehicles need to be able to cope with more severe weather conditions, especially in cities in the northeastern United States.
Since the company first announced the sixth-generation system in 2024, it has been testing it on public roads. Waymo said that the new system benefits from upgraded lidar and radar systems and has stronger environmental awareness capabilities.
“Our sixth-generation lidar takes advantage of the significant cost reductions that have occurred in the industry over the past five years, especially as more consumer vehicles adopt low-cost lidar,” said Jeyachandran.
The company also launched a new generation of 17-megapixel imaging system, which it called "a breakthrough in automotive vision technology" that can achieve panoramic coverage of the vehicle's surroundings while reducing the number of cameras. The new self-developed algorithm improves the system's performance in rain and snow.
"A vision system that operates reliably in inclement weather must be able to keep itself clean. While regular vehicle cameras are susceptible to raindrops, road grime and ice, our system features an integrated cleaning unit to ensure continued clear visibility."