\n<\/p>\n
New York City regulators have extended Waymo\u2019s autonomous vehicle testing permit through the end of the year, the company said Wednesday.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The permit was\u00a0initially granted\u00a0in August to allow Waymo to test its robotaxis in the city until the end of September.\u00a0The terms of the extended permit are the same:\u00a0Waymo can\u00a0deploy up to eight of its Jaguar I-Pace vehicles in Manhattan\u00a0and Downtown Brooklyn with a human safety operator behind the wheel.\u00a0A spokesperson for Waymo said\u00a0the permit makes\u00a0the company\u2019s drivers exempt from\u00a0New York\u2019s\u00a0rules mandating they keep one\u00a0hand\u00a0on the wheel at all times.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Waymo\u2019s\u00a0permit\u00a0extension signals that it is\u00a0inching\u00a0towards\u00a0being the first\u00a0AV company to launch\u00a0a\u00a0robotaxi service on the chaotic and dense streets of NYC. The company currently\u00a0operates\u00a0a commercial service in San Francisco, Austin,\u00a0Atlanta,\u00a0Phoenix, and Los Angeles, and plans to open to the public in Miami, Washington, D.C., Dallas, Denver, and Nashville within the next year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs sponsor of legislation on autonomous vehicles at the state level, I\u2019m encouraged to see New York City moving forward with testing that will show us how this technology can improve safety, reduce congestion, and expand mobility,\u201d Assemblymember Brian Cunningham said in a statement. \u201cThis is the type of measured innovation that allows us to prepare for the future while making sure progress works for New Yorkers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Still, Waymo has a long way to go in NYC \u2014 a city where the Alphabet-owned company has been trying to operate since 2021. Even with this permit, Waymo cannot carry passengers or\u00a0operate\u00a0a commercial robotaxi service\u00a0without getting separate licenses from the city\u2019s Taxi and Limousine Commission. A Waymo spokesperson declined to comment on whether the company is in talks to apply for those licenses.\u00a0TechCrunch has reached out to\u00a0the TLC\u00a0to learn more about requirements\u00a0for AV companies.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another hurdle is that there is no permitting structure in New York\u00a0that\u00a0allows\u00a0Waymo\u00a0or any other AV company\u00a0to\u00a0test or deploy robotaxis without a human safety driver.\u00a0While\u00a0legislation has been introduced\u00a0to create a framework for driverless operation, nothing has been passed into law yet.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New York City regulators have extended Waymo\u2019s autonomous vehicle testing permit through the end of the year, the company said Wednesday.\u00a0\u00a0 The permit was\u00a0initially granted\u00a0in August to allow Waymo to test its robotaxis in the city until the end of September.\u00a0The terms of the extended permit are the same:\u00a0Waymo can\u00a0deploy up to eight of its<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[4513,1863,1012,15236],"class_list":{"0":"post-25190","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-nyc","9":"tag-robotaxis","10":"tag-testing","11":"tag-waymocan"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}