TECH HOW WAYMO STEERED TO THE FRONT OF THE PACK AND MADE SELF-DRIVING TAXIS A REALITY

THE ROAD TO autonomous driving is not for the faint of heart. Look behind to view the wreck of Uber's self-driving car. In the ditch to the left is General Motors' Cruise robo-taxi. And that scent of burning rubber? That's from the skid marks Apple made as it careened toward the exit ramp.

- DAVID MEYER

But one funny-looking vehicle appears to be gaining momentum.

Waymo, born 15 years ago as the "Google SelfDriving Car Project," now offers fully autonomous rideshare services in Phoenix-where its driverless vehicles also make Uber Eats deliveries-as well as in San Francisco and part of Los Angeles; 50,000 paid Waymo rides take place across the three cities each week, the company recently announced.

That paying passengers now routinely hop into empty Waymo vehicles, which gracefully move among the surrounding jumble of human-piloted cars, is a remarkable feat of engineering and a genuine pinch-me moment for anyone who has experienced it. And while Waymo has been at it longer than most, the fact that it has become the leader in the crowded race to commercialize self-driving cars was not a given.

Frederic Bruneteau, the founder of Ptolemus, a Brussels-based automation consultancy and market research firm, likens the competition in the self-driving car industry to the grueling Tour de France bicycle race: "Sometimes you see people catching up with you, and sometimes you're getting ahead and the number of people behind you are pretty scarce. That's what's happened with Waymo."

Aman Nalavade, Waymo's growth and expansion chief, says a go-slow approach has proved to be the right strategy for this race. "We scale responsibly, as it's bad business to overrun supply," Nalavade says. For technology as novel as fully autonomous vehicles, "it takes time to build up a meaningful service and gain a community's trust."

But even the most bullish believers in autonomous transportation acknowledge the tech still has a ways to go before it's reliable enough for wide-spread deployment on U.S. roads. And while Waymo has outlasted its rivals so far, new challenges on the regulatory and competitive front mean that it's closer to the next phase of the race than it is to the finish line.

FROM MOONSHOT TO REALITY