Stellantis, the automaker that owns 14 manufacturers together with Chrysler, Jeep and Ram, and autonomous automobile know-how firm Waymo should not solely nonetheless working collectively, the businesses are deepening the partnership, CEO Carlos Tavares advised TechCrunch in a latest interview.
This “deepened” partnership will give attention to business self-driving Ram supply vans, a goal that was first announced in 2020 and promptly pale from public view. Discussions on this “improved” deal have centered, partially, on a crux round driverless supply: how does the package deal get from the automobile to the client?
“When you reach the destination, how do you take the parcel out of the van?” Tavares mentioned in a wide-ranging interview. “This has been a point of discussion that doesn’t seem easy to solve and we are now upgrading our collaboration deal with them to take that into consideration.”
“At the same time, we understand their needs and there are a lot of things that we can do for them in terms of engineering,” he mentioned, including it’s too quickly to share particulars. “But I would say that the partnership with Waymo is getting deeper. And I think, more exciting.”
Tavares performed coy on the essential what, the place and when particulars. However he did add that he anticipated to have the ability to share extra “possibly by summer.”
A Waymo spokesperson confirmed that the corporate continues to take a look at methods to deepen its relationship with Stellantis, however didn’t share some other particulars or if progress had been made.
Tavares’ feedback recommend the corporate has greater than a passing curiosity in reviving a deal
that appeared destined to fizzle out as so many different autonomous vehicle-OEM partnerships have prior to now two years.
Even when the 2 corporations do cement a broader deal, there may be nonetheless the very actual problem of executing it.
Waymo, which is owned by Google parent-company Alphabet, presently doesn’t function a business supply service utilizing its self-driving autos. Final summer time, it shuttered its self-driving trucks program, Waymo Through, to place all of its sources into scaling the robotaxi service.
In Might 2023, Waymo and Uber agreed to a multi-year strategic partnership to permit Uber customers to hail a driverless automobile through the app in Phoenix. That deal did embody a future plan to incorporate supply through Uber Eats, however as of at the moment, it has not launched, in keeping with a Waymo spokesperson.
The 2 corporations have been companions since 2016 when a deal was struck to provide Waymo with thousands of custom Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans that may change into the primary driverless autos to launch.
Below the deal, Fiat Chrysler — now often known as Stellantis — would deal with the manufacturing and supply Waymo with minivans that in-built redundancies designed for autonomous driving.
Waymo by no means bought near the 62,000-minivan order it agreed to in 2018 as a part of an expanded partnership with Fiat Chrysler. Lots of, not hundreds, of minivans had been delivered to Waymo. However the minivan did change into a crucial a part of its commercialization plan and over its lifespan the fleet offered tens of hundreds of rides to the general public, in keeping with the corporate. (Waymo has by no means revealed detailed figures of its minivan fleet past that its whole international fleet is someplace round 700 autos.)
Waymo ended the Chrysler Pacifica program in Might 2023. Immediately, its robotaxi service makes use of all-electric Jaguar I-Tempo autos.
