Waymo’s self-driving cars can now operate on highways in three US cities.
The Alphabet-owned company has so far only rolled out its services on inner-city streets where it operates, which slows journeys: The freeway option could halve the time of some trips. Highways are, perhaps counterintuitively, easier for AI than streets, with clear signs and lanes, but have higher stakes, with accidents more likely to be deadly. Waymo is the clear US leader in the sector: Its 2,000 vehicles have logged over 100 million driver-free miles, and it says they cause 91% fewer serious injuries than human drivers, though it faces stiff competition abroad from Chinese autonomous driving firms like Baidu and WeRide.