A filing in China’s National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System showed that GOOGLE had registered a company in Shanghai 100% owned by its self-driving company WAYMO. The filing clearly indicates Waymo’s intent to enter the Chinese market. The Chinese subsidiary is named Huimo Business Consulting (Shanghai) Co and has a registered capital of RMB3.5 million. The nature of Huimo’s business according to the filling is the design and testing of self-driving vehicle parts and products, consultation of business, trade, logistics, supply chain and company management.

The most significant news related to Chrysler is the further co-operation with Waymo on autonomous driving and the order of 62,000 Crysler Pacifica minivans by 2021 by the Google-owned company. Waymo and Chrysler have started discussions on developing a Waymo-equipped fully self-driving car for FCA retail customers.

Waymo CEO, John Krafcik in an interview with Bloomberg said that the company is near completing a deal with Honda to develop autonomous delivery vehicles. The partnership will follow on that of Jaguar announced last week. Waymo has already started testing electric trucks in Atlanta last month.

The Jaguar I-Pace became the first luxury electric car in Waymo’s autonomous testing program as the two companies entered into a long-term partnership this week. The aim of the strategic partnership is to develop the world’s first premium autonomous vehicle. Jaguar will test around 20,000 of its new I-Pace electric models in the program over the next two years after which the I-Pace will become part of Waymo’s commercial fleet from 2020 onwards.

The partnership will extend to future projects as Jaguar strives to become a leader in autonomous, connected and future electrified technologies as the Tata-owned company committed to invest heavily in the strategy. The image of the Jaguar I-Pace wth Waymo’s self-driving test system looks quite striking.

Waymo is expanding its self-driving program by launching an autonomous truck plot in Atlanta this week.

Waymo is the first company in the USA to get a permit to operate a commercial driverless taxi service. The State of Arizona issued the permit to Waymo. Waymo is reading itself to start the service later the year.

As Waymo moves from its R&D phase in the self-driving race to operations in the deployment of the world’s first self-driving ride-haling service the company this week entered into an agreement with FCA USA to supply it with thousands of Chrysler Pacifica PHEV minivans. Waymo has already acquired 600 plug-in Pacifica minivans in its self-driving program that now spans 25 cities after the companies entered into a partnership centered around the development of self-driving cars in May 2016. The Chrysler Pacifica plug-in minivans became the first vehicle to attain Level 4 autonomy. According to John Krafcik, CEO of Waymo, “The Pacifica Hybrid minivans offer a versatile interior and a comfortable ride experience, and these additional vehicles will help us scale.”

Reuters reported that Google’s Waymo is to extend its testing of autonomous vehicles to Atlanta. Waymo tweeted “Atlanta is a major hub for technology and innovation, and a natural fit for Waymo’s testing program.” as the State joins four other locations on the company’s testing program. Currently, Waymo tests its self-driving technology on public roads in Phoenix, Michigan, Silicon Valley and San Francisco. Waymo predominantly uses Chrysler Pacifica minivans for its test fleet.

After eight years of developing autonomous driving systems, Waymo entered a new chapter in the race to bring the first self-driving vehicle to market by starting the testing of driverless cars without safety drivers at the wheel. The testing is conducted on public roads in Phoenix, Arizona with a fleet of Chrysler Pacifica mini-vans and follows relaxation of the autonomous testing rules by the authorities in October. According to Waymo through a post on Medium, the company will also invite members of the public to take part in the testing in the next few months.

Alphabet is considering an investment of $1 billion in Lyft according to Bloomberg. The move would build on the co-operation the two companies already have in developing autonomous technology. Alphabet is already invested in Lyft’s competitor, Uber, but Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving point company, is suing Uber for stealing some of its self-driving tech.

Navigant Research placed Ford and GM at the top of its autonomous driving leaderboard, surprisingly far above Waymo (7th), the pioneer of autonomous driving. Waymo was only listed as a contender, and Tesla who has already clocked over 300 million miles in Autopilot (Level 2 Autonomy) did not make the Top 10 list. Waymo, not aiming to develop a car, but rather focusing on autonomous technology has partnered with Chrysler and Ford on testing autonomous technology. Making Navigant’s findings even more surprising to us is that Waymo performed exceptionally well compared to other automakers on the list when comparing across all permit holders allowed to test autonomous tech on Californias public roads. According to CA DMV regulations, each permit holder must annually file a disengagement report, reflecting the number of events where a driver essentially has to take over from the vehicle’s autonomous mode to either prevent a traffic incident or where the system fails. Waymo posted a record 0.2 disengagements per 1,000 miles in its 2016. For a breakdown of each permit holders testing in California read our recent blog providing detailed analysis.

Navigant’s criteria are based on the following ten factors; vision, go-to-market strategy, partners, production strategy, technology, sales, marketing, and distribution, product capability, product quality and reliability, product portfolio and staying power. The Top Ten on Navigant’s list are Ford, GM, Renault–Nissan Alliance, Daimler, Volkswagen Group, BMW, Waymo, Volvo/Autoliv/Zenuity, Delphi and Hyundai Motor Group.
Despite Tesla aiming to have a market ready Level 5 autonomous product by the end of the year, it is only listed as a contender. Tesla is criticized by some, for being too aggressive, using its customers as guinea pigs for its AutoPilot software. Not surprising though is that Uber features on the bottom end of the list, the controversial ride-hailing company has been in the news lately for losing its right to test in San Francisco, being sued by Waymo and a crash in Tempe, Arizona, temporarily halting its pilot program.

WAymo filed papers aginst Uber for stealing its Lidar technology developed in its self-driving project. The case relates to a former employee, Anthony Levandowski downloading files from Google’s servers before joining the autonomous trucking company Otto, which was acquired by Uber in 2016.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles released it’s 2016 Autonomous Vehicle Disengagement report this week. We reported earlier that a total of 20 companies were authorized to test the autonomous technology on the State’s public roads by the end of 2016. The Disengagement report reflects the number of events where a driver essentially has to take over from the vehicle’s autonomous mode to either prevent a traffic incident or where it fails. Alphabet’s autonomous vehicle program moved from Google to a stand-alone company Waymo, revealed its 2016 scoring in a blog post by it’s Head of self-driving technology. Waymo showed a marked improvement from its 2015 safety-related disengages of 0.8 (341) disengages per 1000 miles to 0.2 (124) in 2016.

In May 2016 we reported on the Google (now Waymo) partnership to test self-driving technology with 100 Chrysler Pacifica Minivans. The partnership completed the first vehicles within an impressive six-month period. The partnership revealed the vehicle this week that will be driving on public roads coming 2017.

Finnaly, Google‘s self-driving efforts got some traction after stalling for the most part of 2016. Reuters reported that Alphabet Inc. spun off the Google car, also named the Chauffeur, into a stand-alone company named Waymo, meaning “A new way forward in mobility”. John Krafcik, the new company’s CEO, indicated that the car would be production ready soon. The market always expected that Google would lead the autonomous race, as it started the project nearly a decade ago, and this move may just confirm the expectations.

Apple’s electric vehicle strategy for Project Titan has shifted in recent weeks, steering the company away from directly competing in developing electric cars. The company will focus more on software, specifically related to AI solutions for autonomous cars. Making Apple the first of the big Tech companies that joined the race to compete with Tesla to rather focus on their core strengths, than trying to enter the automobile sector. Others such Google has spent a huge amount of resources to enter the new market, but no production models have come from their efforts yet.

Following on the recent partnership between Google and Fiat Chrysler formed around the Chrysler Pacifica minivan, where the two companies will build 100 self-driving minivans, Google is getting a step closer to its autonomous driving ambitions with the appointment of ex-Airbnb exec Shaun Stewart. Stewart’s appointment as director of the self-driving project is not a replacement for the position of Chris Urmson, the Google project’s technical director, who left in early August after he became unhappy with the direction the project is taking.