TRANSFORMING MOBILITY WITH THE CONFIDENCE OF WORLD-CLASS INVESTORS
As we build, deploy, and commercialize the Waymo Driver, it’s gratifying to see so much interest in being part of our journey to transform mobility, making it safer, more accessible, and more sustainable along the way. So we’re proud to announce our latest investment round of $2.5 billion, with participation from Alphabet, Andreessen Horowitz, AutoNation, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Magna International, Mubadala Investment Company, Perry Creek Capital, Silver Lake, funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., Temasek, and Tiger Global. We’ll use this latest round of investment to continue advancing the Waymo Driver, as well as continuing to grow our team.
With tens of millions of miles driven on public roads across 25 U.S. cities, and tens of billions of miles driven in simulation, our experience has shown us, and our investors, the massive opportunity ahead. We’re building and deploying the Waymo Driver to serve riders, deliver parcels, move freight, and eventually, to empower personal car ownership.
We’re the first company to operate a fully autonomous, public ride-hailing service - Waymo One, and we’ve served thousands of rider-only trips in Metro Phoenix. We’ve been driving in San Francisco and the Bay Area since we first started in 2009, and most recently San Francisco residents are seeing the Waymo Driver on our growing fleet of all-electric Jaguar I-PACE vehicles throughout the city. We’re building the most advanced technology stack for urban driving, and we’re partnering with key community organizations as we shape our product.
Through our delivery business unit, Waymo Via, we’re working with freight partners, including J.B. Hunt, to efficiently move freight cross-country with our growing fleet of Class 8 trucks. On a local level, Waymo Via delivers safely and efficiently on behalf of our clients, including UPS and AutoNation.
Experience has taught us so much, and we agree with those experts who say there’s no greater challenge in artificial intelligence than building and deploying fully autonomous technology at scale. But we love a challenge and - thanks to the unmatched talent of our team - the Waymo Driver is already serving thousands of Waymo One riders as they get to work, shop for groceries, bring their kids to school, or just experience the joy of a ride with no human behind the wheel. Our mission is to make it safe and easy for people and things to get where they’re going, and we’re grateful to our investors for believing in this mission, in our technology, and in us.
Authors - Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov, Waymo Co-CEOs
WAYMO VIA IS WORKING WITH J.B. HUNT TO CARRY FREIGHT ACROSS TEXAS
Getting goods where they need to go safely and easily is at the heart of Waymo Via’s mission. We’ve been carrying freight for customers since 2018, when we completed our first commercial pilot with Google’s Data Centers, and have continued to haul goods on behalf of other Fortune 500 companies across the southwest U.S. As we progress on this journey to commercialize the Waymo Driver for trucking, we’re now working with J.B. Hunt, one of the largest, most reputable, and most innovative transportation logistics companies in the U.S., to autonomously transport loads in Texas for one of their leading customers.
We’ll be using our Class 8 trucks operated by the Waymo Driver on one of the most highly utilized freight corridors in the country, I-45, hauling goods between facilities in Houston and Fort Worth.
As a leading for-hire truckload carrier with operations across the U.S., J.B. Hunt is an ideal collaborator to explore how the Waymo Driver can be integrated across fleets and enhance safety and efficiency. Carrying freight is just one aspect of our collaboration; we’ve also worked closely with J.B. Hunt for some time now on operational and market studies and will continue to do so as we roll out autonomous driving technology. We’ve explored topics such as best practices for regular maintenance, what future facility layouts will look like, and which lanes are best suited for autonomous driving technology, to help ensure long-term preparedness on both sides. These trial runs offer another way to achieve these learnings and will help us define how we can continue working together long-term to advance the trucking industry through the deployment of autonomous driving technology.
We can’t wait to share more on what we learn from these runs together with J.B. Hunt, so stay tuned!
Charlie Jatt, Head of Commercialization for Trucking, Waymo - “We’re thrilled to collaborate with J.B. Hunt as we advance and commercialize the Waymo Driver. Our teams share an innovative and safety-first mindset as well as a deep appreciation for the potential benefits of autonomous driving technology in trucking. It’s companies and relationships like these that will make this technology a commercial reality in the coming years.”
Craig Harper, Chief Sustainability Officer, J.B. Hunt - “This will be one of the first opportunities for J.B. Hunt to receive data and feedback on customer freight moved with a Class 8 tractor operating at this level of autonomy. While we believe there will be a need for highly skilled, professional drivers for many years to come, it is important for J.B. Hunt as an industry leader to be involved early in the development of advanced autonomous technologies and driving systems to ensure that their implementation will improve efficiency while enhancing safety.”
