Waymo has set its Robotaxi targets on NYC

Waymo said on Wednesday that he had asked for a license to test his autonomous vehicles in New York, the first stage of Alphabet in a sticky regulatory process to bring its robotaxis to the largest American city.

Waymo asked for a permit from the New York Ministry of Transport to operate its Jaguar I-Pace vehicles with a human security operator behind the wheel in Manhattan. New York’s demonstration or testing permit requires that a human driver can take over; an insurance policy of $ 5 million; And each test vehicle operator must be adequately trained in the safe operation of the test vehicle.

New York law is particularly prohibitive of autonomous vehicles. Although obtaining a permit is notable, Waymo is far from being able to launch commercial operations in the city – or even a test without human security operator driving.

However, Waymo progresses forward and said that he pleads for a change of state law which would allow a vehicle without human driving. The company also tries to build good will in New York and in the state by working with several organizations such as Madd Ny, Yai, the National Federation of the Blind and the Bronx Community College.

Waymo told Techcrunch that he had had positive conversations with legislators this year and hopes to continue to progress on regulatory changes. New York law stipulates that anyone who operates a motor vehicle must have at least one hand (or prosthesis) on the steering mechanism at any time. The modification of this wording will be the key so that Waymo can possibly deploy driver -free vehicles.

Other companies have already tried to test in New York, including Mobileye and the cruise now closed. But these efforts have never materialized beyond a few manifestations or pilots.

Of course, New York has other challenges beyond regulations. The city is in block hidden with cars, trucks, delivery trucks, bikes, buses and, above all, people, all of them rush. San Francisco, one of the markets in which Waymo operates today, is also a lively city with several of the same challenges. NYC takes this complexity to a factor 10.

Waymo has watched the solid New York market for years. In 2021, the company deployed its mini -duties Chrysler Pacifica now retired – the first autonomous vehicles of its test fleet – at Drive and manually map Manhattan. The company said at the time that each vehicle would have two people, one to drive and another on the passenger seat to help direct the driver’s activity, monitor the software on the vehicle in real time, assess performance and record comments.

These vehicles were never used in autonomous mode, even if they were all equipped with a fifth generation Waymo driver, which was its most common and advanced autonomous system at the time.

Over the past four years, Waymo has evolved in many other places. The company offers more than 250,000 trips paid fully autonomous each week on several American markets, notably Austin, Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Francisco.