Waymo hits 8 million self-driven test miles
CEO John Krafcik says the company is now amassing 25,000 miles of autonomously driven test miles every day.
Waymo's autonomous car project isn't just continuing to rack up test miles at a furious pace, it's accelerating exponentially.
John Krafcik, the head of Alphabet's automated mobility division, has revealed in a new tweet that, as of July 2018, Waymo vehicles have now amassed 8 million miles of self-driven testing on public roads. What's more, it's accumulated the last million miles in just one month, at a rate of 25,000 miles per day.
Those are (claimed) real-world miles, plus an additional 5-billion-plus miles in simulation.
Waymo has self-driven 8 million miles on public roads, now at a rate of 25K miles per day. This real-world experience, plus over 5 billion miles in simulation, is how we're building the world’s most experienced driver. pic.twitter.com/VkfmLxwi2c
— John Krafcik (@johnkrafcik) July 20, 2018
To put that in perspective, we reported on November 28, 2017 that the company had hit half that total -- 4 million miles. Waymo has doubled its number of self-driven miles in just eight months.
Waymo has been at the forefront of automated transportation development since before the division was spun out of Google, and it continues to develop self-driving hardware and software with the mindset that intermediate Level 2 and Level 3 partially automated systems are a developmental dead-end compared to full Level 4 or 5 autonomy.
Waymo's rapid acceleration in testing and evaluation is unlikely to slow any time soon. Earlier this month, the company took delivery of its first three Jaguar i-Pace SUVs for a new batch of all-electric test vehicles that will eventually number 20,000. That's on top of the company's announcement in May that it plans to purchase 62,000 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans for automated use.
