- General
- June 20, 2019
- 5 minutes read
Waymo Partners With Renault And Nissan
A Renault self-driving vehicle image: Renault The self-driving vehicle scene has been hot as of late. There have — recently…
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| A Renault self-driving vehicle
image: Renault
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The self-driving vehicle scene has been hot as of late. There have — recently — been lots of partnerships, funding and other activities in this scene. To name a few, Volvo partnered with Nvidia to develop self-driving trucks, Intel’s Mobileye has said it aims to launch a commercial robo-cab service by next year, Domino’s and Nuro have partnered to deliver pizza via the latter’s driverless vehicles.
Now there’s a new partnership, this time from Alphabet’s Waymo. The self-driving company has partnered with French automobile manufacturer Renault and Japanese automaker Nissan to explore driverless vehicle services for passengers and deliveries in France and Japan. Under this partnership, the three parties will collaborate to research on commercial, regulatory and legal issues related to driverless transport.
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| An engineer monitors the view of a Renault self-driving vehicle
image: Renault
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Research will first take place in France and Japan, and may expand to other markets — excluding China — in future time, the three companies said in a joint press release. Renault and Nissan will also set up joint ventures in France and Japan to further the research.
Aligning with Waymo make sense, as the Alphabet owned self-driving unit leads the robo-vehicle race with more than 10 million — testing — miles covered on public roads across 25 U.S. cities. Waymo also says it has completed more than 7 billion miles of virtual testing on its vehicles.
The Alphabet-owned unit has reportedly met with more than 12 automakers for self-driving partnerships, signalling alliances as a way to build strength in the self-driving race. Waymo also recently hit the news with a Lyft partnership to make its driverless vehicles available on the ride-hailing app.
