Waymo shows off its next truly driverless prototype car

Waymo is now running a robotaxi service in two states, but the vehicles for those services are retrofitted commercial cars. The company rolls around in either the "4th-gen" Waymo vehicles, built on the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid, or the "5th-gen" driver, built on the Jaguar I-Pace. That's all great for enabling Waymo's service to get up and running, but these vehicles, which are full of controls and dials for human drivers, are driven by a robot that, in the long term, doesn't actually need a steering wheel or pedals.

So, for the second time now, Waymo is doing a ground-up design of a driverless vehicle, without any of those useless, legacy human controls. The car was originally announced in December, but today Waymo is showing off a bit more detail about the vehicle. Real-life models are actually being built now, with Waymo showing off the car at an LA press event and a camouflaged, sensorless, human-driven test mule recently hitting a test track.

The car is being built with Geely Group's Zeekr brand and designed as an all-electric "transportation-as-a-service (TaaS)-optimized" vehicle. The car has no steering wheel, pedals, or mirrors, and four automated sliding doors open up like it's some kind of road-going subway train. Inside, the minivan seats five people, including two in the front, where the dashboard contains nothing but a centrally mounted touchscreen. There are also two seat-back touchscreens for the back seats, where you can play music, pick a destination, or see what the car is currently thinking.

All electric.
Riders-first.
Designed specifically for fully autonomous ride-hailing.

Take a peek at our new mobility platform in partnership with @GeelyGroup—available in the years to come. 🤖🚘 pic.twitter.com/AJiRtPzytP

— Waymo (@Waymo) November 17, 2022

If we take a wild guess at the sensors here, there is a cylindrical sensor repeated six times on the vehicle, which is most likely LIDAR. You get one sensor in each corner of the car pointing directly sideways, presumably as lookouts for lane changing. Then for forward and reverse, there are lower-mounted sensors in the front and back, right in the center of the bumper. These six items all seem like they are the "don't hit anything" sensors and are tasked with just getting a perimeter scan of what's immediately around the car. Then there is the usual big sensor suite mounted on the roof, with longer-range 360 lidar and other sensors, for planning and route finding.

Geely's press release says this car is built on the "SEA-M architecture," which is designed specifically for autonomous vehicles. Geely describes the vehicle, saying, "The SEA-M subverts the idea of developing vehicles around the driver, which doesn’t exist in autonomous vehicles. It gives designers the opportunity to create an intelligent mobile 'living room' due to the architecture’s fundamental features such as expansive interior, open seat choice and placement option, no B-pillar, and robust electrical/electronic (E/E) backbone supporting autonomous drive and connected devices."

The Waymo collaboration resulted in the "purpose-built TaaS SEA-M variant" with Waymo branding, but the basic SEA-M design can be used in other vehicles. Geely also put out a Chinese-language press release showing off an autonomous "M-Vision" car using the same basic vehicle design. The M-Vision shots show off even more radical, train-like interior options, with one shot showing a backward-facing front seat and a table in the center of the vehicle, which is truly going for a "living room" layout. Interestingly, Geely says the M-Vision will hit the streets in 2024. Waymo isn't that specific.

Google/Waymo's first steering-wheel-free prototype car was the Google Firefly, a bubbly little two-seater that hit public roads in 2015. That little wind-up car was barely a vehicle, with a capped top speed of 25 mph, and was presumably only allowed on the roads as a test project. Waymo is now an independent Alphabet company, with a live commercial ride-sharing service and a need for vehicles. New National Highway Traffic Safety Administratio rules this year now allow for driverless cars to nationally hit the roads without steering wheels, so Waymo and Geely could actually roll out a bunch of these. Waymo says the car will be "available in the years to come" for ride-hailing.