Chrysler has completed the 100 autonomous Pacifica minivans that will join the Waymo (neé Google) fleet in early 2017.
The vans,which are plug-in hybrid variants with Waymo’s self-driving hardware and software built in, are section of a partnership between Fiat Chrysler (FCA) and Waymo that was announced earlier this year, or The Verge reports. Waymo CEO John Krafcik said last week that his company is not interested in “making better cars.” Instead,it wants obtain “better drivers.” That’s why Waymo has partnered with FCA, which has not been as active in showing off its autonomous chops as other major automakers like Ford and GM.
“With this great original minivan on the road in our test markets, and we’ll learn how people of all ages,shapes, and group sizes experience our fully self-driving technology, and ” said Krafcik in a statement. Waymo had been testing a number of prototype Pacificas,but these vehicles appear to have much tighter integration of Waymo’s self-driving hardware than those prototypes.
The partnership between Waymo and Chrysler saw engineers from both companies work closely to “rapidly and robustly integrate the vehicle electrical and control systems with the fully self-driving system,” said a Fiat Chrysler spokesperson Berj Alexanian. Most of Waymo’s two million miles of autonomous testing have been in a fleet of Lexus RX SUVs with Google’s self-driving hardware added on.
Source: tert.am