The French automobile company, Renault has partnered with Waymo, the automobile subsidiary of tech giant Alphabet Inc., to bring new autonomous cars to France and Japan. The venture also includes Renault’s Japanese partner Nissan, which will be responsible for the launch of those self-driving cars in Japan.
With this partnership, Renault and Nissan will be researching on how self-driving cars can help in easing-out the transportation of humans as well as goods and develop driverless mobility services for the same. Noticeably, Waymo has already brought such vehicles in Arizona called Waymo One and a limited robo-taxi pilot program in suburban Phoenix last year. Though the launched cars are fully-autonomous, there is always a human monitor sitting on the other front seat of the car for emergencies.
The companies will also work on the commercial, legal and regularity issues, that are related to the development of self-driving cars and making the transportation-as-a-service for both the countries.
According to the reports, the agreement between the companies has been done for a limited but unspecified time. There has been no comment on the same from either of the company. The agreement also has restricted all the three to work with other companies on a similar project.
“This is an ideal opportunity for Waymo to bring our autonomous technology to a global stage, with an innovative partner. With the Alliance’s international reach and scale, our Waymo Driver can deliver transformational mobility solutions to safely serve riders and commercial deliveries in France, Japan, and other countries,” said John Krafcik, CEO Waymo, in a statement.
Though Waymo is quite excited about this merger, the venture will be a 50-50 partnership between Renault and Nissan for both the countries, and there has been no hint on the role of Waymo for the same. The two companies will be setting up a joint committee to work together in France and Japan.
Earlier, the two companies were in talks with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) to bring next-generation technology and work in the field of self-driving cars. But the merger could not take place, and FCA withdrew the agreement.
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