Waymo cars can self-drive as far as 10 million miles

Alphabet has multiple on-going ride-sharing efforts from Waymo and self-driving vehicles to Waze Carpool. Housed within Google, the latter is expanding its take on ride-sharing across the U.S. today, while the Alphabet company hit a major milestone.

Since 2009, when Waymo started as the Google Self-Driving Car Project, the company’s various autonomous vehicles have driven 10 millions on public roads. This milestone is unmatched by the rest of the industry. In addition to driving in the real world, Waymo heavily relies on simulations with 7 billion miles of simulated travel.

The first million miles took Google over six years, but the pace has rapidly accelerated from over a year to approximately a month today. Meanwhile, Waymo is testing in various conditions from snow in Michigan, steep hills in San Francisco, and Phoenix desert conditions.

In the latter state, Waymo currently has a pilot program ahead of launching a public-ride sharing service later this year.

Meanwhile, Waze Carpool is expanding rapidly across the United States. The service from the navigation app is notable for the restrictions that make it different from Uber or Lyft, but more affordable. Carpool is akin to more traditional carpooling than being a direct taxi replacement.

The company is heavily emphasizing the service’s potential to cut down on traffic congestion by sharing cars. There are no full-time employees, with riders and passengers restricted to two rides a day — for getting to and from work.

With the help of our community, technology, and data, Waze Carpool matches people who are going in the same direction. This removes the friction of sharing our rides so we can start leaving some of our cars at home and take steps towards eliminating traffic, altogether. We know that by completing these small everyday acts of cooperation, we can make a big change to the way we move around our cities and improve our lives, together.

Waze Carpool began testing in San Francisco back in 2017 before expanding to the entire state of California. Starting today, the service will be available in all 50 states.