Location: San Francisco, California

Self-driving car startup Waymo begins test rides in San Francisco

SAM KANSARA, SENIOR PRODUCT MANAGER AT WAYMO: "Today we're taking the next step within our San Francisco testing program with the announcement of Waymo One Trusted Tester. This is a research-focused initiative where select members of the public will be able to take Waymo for their everyday mobility needs and give us feedback along the way."

Formerly known as Google’s self-driving car project

Waymo hopes to eventually open the robotaxis to anyone in the city

The test program in San Francisco follows a successful deployment

of self-driving minivans in some Phoenix suburbs last year

after three years of testing there

KANSARA: “All those learnings, all of that, all of the feedback that we've received from our riders in that market and about autonomous vehicles generally are all things that we're going to take into account and into our our roadmap, even in San Francisco. And so we'll say that was the first big step. Getting the first deployment of a fully autonomous service, you know, was definitely a big milestone for us to hit. And we're very proud of it. And then we obviously hope to bring it rapidly to other markets in the future."

Anyone can sign up for Waymo’s ride-hailing app in San Francisco

but for now the company is hand-selecting who it picks up