Waymo brings its cars to NYC for testing, applies for autonomous driving permit
FILE PHOTO: Waymo driverless vehicles wait at a traffic light in Santa Monica, California, U.S., May 30, 2025. REUTERS/Daniel Cole/File Photo
(Reuters) -Alphabet's self-driving unit Waymo said on Wednesday its vehicles will be back in New York City next month for autonomous testing, as it continues to scale operations in the U.S.
The race to deploy robotaxis is picking up pace as Waymo expands testing and Tesla prepares to begin limited trials of its autonomous taxi service with as few as 10 cars this weekend — a sign of growing momentum in self-driving vehicle development.
Waymo has applied for a permit from the New York City Department of Transportation to operate autonomously, with a trained specialist behind the wheel in Manhattan.
"This is not an expansion, butwe have every intention of bringing our fully autonomous ride-hailing service to the city in the future," Waymo said.
Waymo will start by manually driving in the city until it gets the permit. If granted, it would be New York City's first testing deployment of autonomous vehicles.
New York State law does not currently allow operating a vehicle with no human behind the wheel and Waymo said it is advocating for a change to the law.
The company had previously brought its cars to Manhattan in 2021 for manual driving, data collection and testing.
Waymo on Tuesday said it will expand into more areas of the San Francisco peninsula and parts of Silicon Valley. Last month, it received approval from California to expand operations.
As the only U.S. firm to run robotaxi services with paying passengers, Waymo has more than 1,500 vehicles, running over 250,000 rides a week across San Francisco and Los Angeles in California, Phoenix in Arizona and Austin in Texas.
(Reporting by Juby Babu in Mexico City; Editing by Alan Barona)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Malay Mail
18 minutes ago
- Malay Mail
Pay by glasses: Alipay+ and Meizu launch world's first AR smart glasses with voice-activated eWallet
KUALA LUMPUR, June 20 — Alipay+ has launched the world's first smart glasses with an integrated eWallet payment solution. The world's first real-world smart glasses-embedded eWallet payment transaction was conducted in Hong Kong via AlipayHK, using the Meizu StarV Snap smart glasses. The development marks a major milestone for Alipay+ as it advances global mobile payment innovation. It also expands the use case scenarios for the AR glass industry while creating new growth avenues for eWallets and merchants. With the pair of Meizu StarV Snap glasses, a user can easily make an eWallet payment via QR scans or voice commands. The feature is made possible by a combination of Alipay+'s AI-powered intent recognition, voice interface, and voiceprint authentication features. According to Alipay+, the feature will be rolled out to its global partner eWallets in 2025 upon the integration of Alipay+'s upgraded tech suite for smart glasses. Smart glasses as a new payment device Alipay+ has been exploring smart glasses as a new payment method as it had previously debuted a smart glasses payment solution with Rokid in China. The latest integration is powered by Alipay+'s latest software development kit (SDK), embedded into all new Meizu smart glasses. The feature is supported by Meizu's optical waveguide display technology, voice noise cancellation and capture technology, and camera-based QR code scanning, which provides a hands-free experience. From the demo video, the glasses use eye tracking to detect the QR code and the user can state the payment amount by voice. It relies on voiceprint recognition to authenticate the payment. To recap, Alipay+ is a unified cross-border wallet gateway under Ant International. It currently connects over 1.7 billion user accounts from 36 global eWallets, national QR schemes, and banking apps to 100 million merchants across more than 70 core markets. With one integration, eWallet providers and financial institutions can access Alipay's expanding toolkits for customer engagement and business growth. This includes integration of QR based and card payments via a global NFC solution. Alipay+ also enables a full range of agentic AI features which include a MCP-based AI payments built on Alipay+ GenAI Cockpit, an AI-as-a-Service platform for fintech companies. Peng Guo, General Manager of the XR Division at Meizu, said, 'The offline payment function of smart glasses launched overseas by Meizu and Alipay+ has set a new technological benchmark for the industry.' 'The innovation in the payment scenario has enhanced the practicality and appeal of smart glasses and promoted the progress and development of the AR glasses industry. We hope this function will bring more convenient experiences to users,' he added. Meanwhile, Ant International Chief Innovation Officer, Jiangming Yang, said 'We are grateful to work with industry leaders like Meizu to pioneer smart glasses-embedded payment solutions. By unlocking payment capabilities, smart glasses will rapidly transform into the next-gen personal device like the mobile phone.' He continued, 'We look forward to supporting more industry partners with one integration into Alipay+'s premium wallet ecosystem across global markets, to help them build broader user scenarios and achieve growth' While Meizu is back in Malaysia as a smartphone brand, there are no pricing and availability details yet for the new smart glasses in Malaysia. At the moment, Alipay+ already supports cross-border payments for eWallets such as Touch 'n Go eWallet where travellers can make cashless payments abroad like a local. — SoyaCincau
Malay Mail
18 minutes ago
- Malay Mail
Rising global risks drive safe-haven rush, boosting US dollar to monthly peak
NEW YORK, June 20 — The dollar was set to log its biggest weekly rise in over a month today, as uncertainties about a raging war in the Middle East and the repercussions it could have on the global economy fuelled an appetite for traditional safe havens. The dollar index comparing the US currency against six others is poised for a 0.5 per cent climb this week. The conflict between Israel and Iran shows no signs of subsiding and market participants are nervous about potential US intervention in the region. The two countries have been in a week-long air battle as Tel Aviv seeks to thwart Tehran's nuclear ambitions and cripple the domestic government. The White House said US President Donald Trump will make a decision within the next two weeks about whether to join Israel in the war. The resultant recent spike in oil prices added a new layer of inflation uncertainty for central banks across regions which have been grappling with the potential repercussions of US tariffs on their economies. 'Rising oil prices introduce inflation uncertainty at a time when growth is weakening,' said Charu Chanana, chief investment strategist at Saxo. 'That makes central banks' jobs much harder — do they ease to support growth or hold back to avoid fuelling inflation? Most seem to be prioritising growth concerns for now, assuming that crude gains may not be sustained.' In early Asia trading, the euro inched up 0.16 per cent to US$1.151, while the dollar weakened against the yen by 0.17 per cent to 145.23 per dollar. Also underpinning the yen's gains was hotter-than-expected inflation data that kept expectations for upcoming interest rate hikes alive. Furthermore, minutes from the Bank of Japan's policy meet this week showed policymakers agreed on the need to keep raising rates that are still at very low levels. The Swiss franc was flat at 0.816 per dollar today but was set for its largest weekly drop since mid-April after the country's central bank lowered borrowing costs. Swiss rates now stand at zero per cent. Currencies positively correlated to risk sentiment such as the Australian and New Zealand dollars were steady, while sterling was little changed at US$1.34. Although the Federal Reserve earlier this week stuck with its forecast of two interest rate cuts this year, Chair Jerome Powell cautioned against giving that view too much weight. Analysts saw the central bank's delivery as a 'hawkish tilt' further underpinning the greenback's gains this week. Investors were, however, taken aback by an unexpected 25 basis point interest rate cut by Norges bank and the krone is down by more than 1 per cent against the dollar this week. Though geopolitical tensions were the main market focus this week, concerns about tariffs and the impact they may have on costs, corporate margins and overall growth are ever-present. These concerns have weighed on the dollar, which is down about 9 per cent this year. Trump's early July tariff deadline looms and sources said that European officials are increasingly resigned to a 10 per cent rate on 'reciprocal' tariffs being the baseline in any trade deal between the US and the EU. Elsewhere, the offshore yuan was little changed at 7.185 after China kept benchmark lending rates unchanged as expected. — Reuters
The Sun
20 minutes ago
- The Sun
Govt committed to reducing national deficit
PUTRAJAYA: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said the government is committed to consistently reducing the country's fiscal deficit to ensure a more sustainable economy and to maintain investor confidence. Anwar, who is also the Finance Minister, said the fiscal deficit was at 5.5 per cent when he assumed leadership in 2022. It was reduced to 4.1 per cent in 2024, with a projection of 3.8 per cent for this year. 'Some people ask why we want to reduce the deficit so much. Why not just give more to the people? But if we don't do it this way, investor confidence will not be there. 'For me, the foremost responsibility of leadership and economic management is to implement policies that we believe are good – that is what matters most. 'Secondly, with investor confidence, we can solve many issues related to national revenue, job opportunities, and overall development,' he said at the Finance Ministry's monthly assembly here today.
