At the end of 2021, Waymo and Geely announced an agreement to jointly develop an electric drive vehicle autonomous to be used within the robotaxi service that Waymo will offer in the United States. The car will have the Zeekr brand and will be based on on the SEA-M platform specifically designed for self-driving cars. It is essentially an evolution of the Geely Group's SEA platform which we already find on some electric cars such as the new Smart #1 and the Zeekr 001.
We have seen several spy photos of the robotaxi that Zeekr is developing over the past few months. Apparently, tests should begin soon on American roads open to traffic to evaluate the functionality of the device. of autonomous driving. Some Zeekr announcements on LinkedIn make it clear that this testing phase is approaching.
In fact, the Chinese company is looking for a logistics manager for the Waymo program in the United States. Furthermore, again for this project, the car manufacturer is looking for a manager to manage assistance and repair operations. A spokesperson for Zeekr then confirmed to TechCrunch that the start of testing on American roads is imminent. very close indeed. In fact, the first cars created in collaboration with Waymo should begin testing by the end of the year. The spokesperson then added that the project is progressing as planned.
At the moment, Zeekr and Waymo have not wanted to share information on when actual passenger transport services will start. However, job announcements and the upcoming start of testing give us hope that the project is progressing according to schedule.
All that remains is to wait for more information. Probably, however, initially the tests will take place with a person on board ready to intervene in case of emergency and only on selected roads. Only subsequently will we move on to to the tests without anyone on board.
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