The health and safety of our team is our top priority as we continue to navigate the global pandemic and gradually resume our driving operations. That’s why we’ve partnered with Verily, an Alphabet company focused on healthcare and life sciences, to provide integrated COVID-19 testing, symptom and exposure screening, and data analytics for our front-line team members and partners. Verily’s Healthy at Work program uses the best of current recommendations from federal, state and local authorities, and Verily’s operational, clinical, data science modeling and scientific testing capabilities. In addition to the rigorous COVID-19 safety protocols we’ve implemented, we believe that providing regular testing for our team, through Verily’s CLIA-certified lab in South San Francisco, will promote our high standards for workplace safety. 

On the path to building the World’s Most Experienced Driver, we partner with some of the world’s largest automakers to realize our mission to make it safe and easy for people and things to get where they’re going. We focus on custom designing our hardware suite, software, and compute. We then collaborate with carmakers, leveraging their expertise in automotive design, engineering, and manufacturing, to help us create vehicles that integrate easily with the Waymo Driver, making them well-suited for ride hailing, local delivery, trucking, and personal car ownership. That’s why we’re pleased to share today our latest automotive partnership.

Waymo has closed an extension of the financing round announced on March 2, in which funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., Perry Creek Capital, Fidelity Management & Research Company, and other external investors participated, bringing the total size of the round to $3 billion.

One year ago, Waymo became the first and only company in the world to launch a public self-driving ride-hailing service. We now have thousands of people using it in their everyday lives across the Metro Phoenix area and have enjoyed seeing how they rely on the Waymo Driver to get them where they need to be, whether that’s work, the grocery store, or a fun night out.

At Waymo, we’re passionate about educating everyone on self-driving technology. While we’re working to increase access to our ride-hailing program, Waymo One, that allows people to experience and learn about this technology first hand, we also want to do our part to make resources available to those who have not yet experienced this technology.

Our CEO John Krafcik took the stage at IAA Frankfurt auto show today to share more on our journey here at Waymo and where we’re going next. Here’s a recap of his remarks.

Both human-driven and self-driving cars need to drive in many different weather conditions. Waymo is designing and testing our system to work safely and reliably in the toughest environments. Over the last few years our testing has taken us to snowy Novi, Michigan, rainy Kirkland, Washington, foggy San Francisco, and of course those dusty haboobs in Phoenix, Arizona. This month, Florida joins the list: we’re bringing both Waymo vehicles — including our Chrysler Pacificas and a Jaguar I-Pace — to the state to begin heavy rain testing.

As we continue to grow our team here at Waymo, we’re excited to share that Becky Bucich joins us as our Chief People Officer.

Today we’re announcing that Waymo has entered into an exclusive partnership with Renault and Nissan on behalf of The Alliance to explore driverless mobility services for passengers and deliveries in France and Japan.

Six months ago, we launched Waymo One, our commercial self-driving ride-hailing service in the Metro Phoenix area. Over that time we’ve grown to serve over 1,000 riders who hail Waymo cars each day to commute to and from work, bring their kids to school, get to the grocery store, and even to avoid parking at trailheads before a big run.

Today, we’re pleased to share some details of our partnership with Lyft, which will help us welcome even more riders in Metro Phoenix to experience self-driving technology.

In January, we announced that we would open the world’s first factory 100% dedicated to the mass production of L4 autonomous vehicles. We wanted this facility to benefit from a location in southeast Michigan — the heart of the American automotive industry — and its strong talent base. We began looking for a facility that would allow us to quickly get up and running by mid-2019, while offering us the flexibility to continue to grow and expand our operations in Michigan over time and where there was a strong pool of talent across engineering, operations, and fleet coordination.

Good news for our Metro Phoenix friends: Waymo’s ride-hailing app is now available on Google Play.

We opened our first location in Metro Phoenix in Chandler, Arizona in 2016, the same year we started driving in the region. Since then, we’ve grown our team to hundreds of local residents.

Today, we’re excited to announce that Waymo will open a technical service center in Mesa, a nearby city in Phoenix’s East Valley.

For most Americans, the AAA name is synonymous with safe driving. Whether it’s coming to drivers’ aid on the roadside or helping people be more careful drivers, AAA has been an advocate for safety for more than a century, and in fact helped create the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). That’s why we’re thrilled to see their leadership extend to the future of self-driving cars.

Waymo will be heading to Austin, Texas to participate in this year’s SXSW festival. Austin is the home of our first fully driverless ride on public roads , so it holds a special place in our hearts.

For over a decade, Waymo has been developing self-driving technology with a mission to make it safe and easy for people and things to move around.

Each year California requires companies with AV testing permits in the state to report on their disengagements. These reports assist the state in its understanding of how well a self-driving car is doing its job.