Autonomous Vehicle Progression Waymo and Fiat Chrysler corporate cars have been running in combination for some time. Waymo’s pilot vans are in the Chrysler Pacifica minivan, for example, but now this partnership is taking to a new level, according to a joint announcement made Wednesday through the companies.
FCA plans to use Waymo’s Level Four autonomous driving generation in long-term versions of Ram ProMaster soft advertising vehicles. In fact, FCA will be the exclusive spouse of Alphabet’s autonomous driving department for the progression of Lfour advertising vehicle generation. Beyond that, FCA also stated that Waymo will now be its exclusive Lfour spouse for all its brands.
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“Our now four-year partnership with Waymo continues to break new ground. Incorporating the Waymo Driver, the world’s leading self-driving technology, into our Pacifica minivans, we became the only partnership actually deploying fully autonomous technology in the real world, on public roads. With this next step, deepening our relationship with the very best technology partner in this space, we’re turning to the needs of our commercial customers by jointly enabling self-driving for light commercial vehicles, starting with the Ram ProMaster,” FCA CEO Mike Manley said in a statement. “Adding Waymo’s commitment to partner with us to deploy its L4 fully autonomous technology across our entire product portfolio, our partnership is setting the pace for the safe and sustainable mobility solutions that will help define the automotive world in the years and decades to come.”
The Ram ProMaster commercial vehicle will be the first vehicle to benefit from the new Waymo/FCA L4 autonomy partnership.
So what does all this mean, exactly? It’s admittedly hard to say what it means in the short term. Reliable, commercially available L4 autonomy — that is, full self-driving tech, but with a steering wheel that’s selectable for manual control — is still likely a long way off, even for Waymo. Adding in the complication of the massive merger that FCA and PSA Groupe (combined, they will be known as Stellantis) are undertaking, means that things could become more convoluted still though it’s likely that the specific language of the partnership will allow for expansion to other brands.
This is a pretty bold move on the part of Fiat Chrysler, and it should be good business for Waymo, so we’re excited to see what happens.
This was originally published on Roadshow.
Gallery: Fiat Chrysler, Waymo expand partnership for Level 4 self-driving (Autoblog)
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