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FCA (Fiat Chrysler Automobiles) has announced that they will continue to expand their partnership with Alphabet's Waymo. Waymo is a company that has been working on self-driving vehicles for more than a decade now. For some time now Waymo had been using a Chrysler Pacifica van equipped with self-driving technology to create a autonomous taxi. The latest announcement of the partnership is really good news for consumers because it will bring the reality of self driving vehicles much closer.
FCA claims that they will be working closely together to incorporate self-driving technology to most of their brand of vehicles. The technology will focus on ride sharing, commercial, and for personal use. FCA and Waymo will work together to develop a self-driving Ram ProMaster van. The van will be used by Waymo Via, which is Waymo's delivery service. Both companies plan to develop and integrate a level 4 autonomy into the vehicles. Autonomous driving has 5 levels based on SAE standards. Level 5 autonomy means that the vehicle can drive itself in any road and weather condition without a driver present.
The untapped market of autonomous ride sharing is the focus of waymo, FCA, and its investors. It is widely believed that autonomous ride sharing could be extremely profitable for the company that figures out the right formula. Current ride sharing businesses like Lyft, and Uber are bleeding cash in this category. However, the race towards full autonomy for this market has become extremely competitive. Companies like Cruise backed by GM and Honda, Argo-AI are backed by Ford and Volkswagen, and Aptiv are backed by Hyundai-Kia. Also lets not forget about Tesla who has probably clocked in the most autonomously driven miles of any these companies. At the end of the day gathering real world data and using that data to improve the AI is the only way any of these companies will succeed. This is not an easy mountain to climb, but it is good news for the consumer. History has proven that the best technology is developed when companies race for market dominance. Thank you, stay buzzed.
-Bear 07.22.2020
Photo credit: FCA group, Waymo
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