Waymo's self-driving cars can finally try to drive on the highway

The days of avoiding highways when Waymo’s self-driving cars plan their way are finally over. The Alphabet-owned company announced today that its fully driverless vehicles will begin driving at high speeds on Phoenix freeways while ferrying passengers to and from their destinations.

Waymo says it will slow down highway driving to a certain extent — not in terms of vehicle speed, but in terms of accepting passengers. The company will initially offer self-driving services only to employees and their friends. After that, paying passengers using the company's WaymoOne ride-hailing app will be able to drive on the highway if their trip requires it.

Self-driving cars typically avoid highways and instead take lower-speed local roads. This has also been noticed by users of robo-taxi services, who often note that their journeys may take longer because self-driving cars are banned from driving on highways.

In contrast, most automakers only allow customers to use partially autonomous advanced driver-assistance systems with features such as adaptive cruise control and lane centering on restricted-lane highways.

Critics argue that avoiding highways proves that self-driving cars are not ready for real-life driving. But testing by self-driving truck companies has largely been conducted on highways -- albeit with only human safety drivers in the front seats. Waymo, for example, has been testing self-driving trucks on Texas highways, though the company has recently shifted from trucking to passenger transportation.

Waymo said it will collect data as miles are driven on the highway and get feedback from employees using the vehicles as passengers. The company said it ultimately hopes to offer faster routes, especially to customers using self-driving cars to get to the Phoenix airport. (Airport travel is still the main profit point for various taxi services).