������ý

Waymo on March 6 began selling the laser-mapping sensors used on its driverless vehicles to other companies — as long as the customers don’t compete with its core robotaxi business. The sensors, known as lidar, shoot lasers off objects to determine what is nearby.

LANSING, Mich. — Google self-driving car spinoff Waymo said Jan. 22 that it will bring a factory to Michigan, creating up to 400 jobs at what it describes as the world’s first plant “100%” dedicated to the mass production of autonomous vehicles.

Autonomous vehicle pioneer Anthony Levandowski has formed a new software company called Pronto. Its first aftermarket product, Copilot, provides camera-based self-driving technology for the Class 8 market.

Google’s Waymo, Uber and carmakers GM and Mercedes-Benz are among the companies working to put driverless vehicles in showrooms. That competition also should help lower prices that can reach $75,000 apiece for the sensors that scan a car’s surrounding environment so it knows how to drive itself.

Self-driving vehicles typically are described as a disruptive technology that will make traditional modes of public transportation obsolete, but a recent announcement by Chandler-based Waymo is challenging that narrative.

An automaker like General Motors Co. brings two advantages to the development of self-driving vehicles: knowledge of how to build a car and the factories to do it. Silicon Valley’s biggest entrants into autonomous vehicles, particularly Alphabet Inc., have legions of coders and piles of cash.

Gradient Ventures, an early-stage venture fund within Google, is leading a $6 million investment in a new company that’s building software to let humans control cars remotely.

Waymo is teaming up with Jaguar Land Rover on autonomous vehicles, its second major automaker partnership and a big boost for the nascent technology that has come under scrutiny recently.

In a pioneering self-driving car company’s first public comments on the Uber autonomous car accident March 18 that killed an Arizona woman, Waymo CEO John Krafcik said his tech could “handle” that very scenario.

It’s getting to be a traffic jam. Alphabet Inc.’s autonomous vehicle division Waymo began this month operating an autonomous freight truck in the Atlanta area, carrying server equipment, racks and related material to Google data centers.