Waymo purchases thousands of minivans for driverless taxi service

Google sister company Waymo has purchased thousands of additional Chrysler Pacifica minivans from automaker Fiat Chrysler. The vehicles should be delivered sometime later this year. The cars will be used for Waymo’s self-driving taxi service.

Neither the automaker nor Waymo has specified how many thousands of Chrysler Pacifica minivans will be delivered, Reuters reported. Both companies have said these additional cars will be used to expand Waymo’s driverless taxi service to more cities in the United States.

Waymo has said it plans to begin opening its self-driving car taxi service to the public sometime this year in Phoenix. The company has been driving driverless Chrysler Pacifica minivans around Phoenix for several months since November last year. In total, Waymo is now testing some 600 self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans in 25 different US cities.

In October last year, the Google sister company announced that it will stop developing systems for self-driving cars that make it necessary for occupants to intervene in certain situations. According to Waymo, it is too unsafe to assume human intervention.

Waymo is the result of Google’s efforts to develop a self-driving car. A few years ago, Google spun off that division and renamed it Waymo.