It may seem that the autonomous driving trend is moving forward at full speed and on its own, especially if you live in California.
Wayve, a British startup that has received over $1 billion in funding, is now joining the big party by starting road tests of its AI learning system on the streets of San Francisco and the Bay Area.
The announcement comes just weeks after Tesla unveiled its robotaxi at Warner Bros Studios in Burbank, California. An accident in San Francisco last year also forced General Motors' Cruise robotaxi service to suspend operations. And most notably in California, Waymo, the only functioning robotaxi service in the US, has deployed its fleet of self-driving cars for the first time.
As part of its move, Wayve opened a new office in Silicon Valley to support its US expansion and AI development. Similar to Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) software, the company says it uses AI to provide automakers with a full range of driver assistance and automation features.
“We are now testing our AI software in real-world environments on two continents,” said Alex Kendall, co-founder and CEO of Wayve.
The company has been conducting tests on British roads since 2018. The company received a huge boost earlier this year when it raised over $1 billion under the leadership of Softbank and alongside Microsoft and Nvidia. In August, Uber also said it would invest to support the development of Wayve technology.
Just like Tesla's FSD, Wayve's software offers an advanced driver assistance system that still requires driver supervision.
Before self-driving vehicles can legally hit the road, they must first pass strict safety tests.
So far, Waymo's technology, which relies on pre-mapped roads, sensors, cameras, radar and lidar (a laser light radar), is the only one of its kind approved by US regulators.
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