Waymo cars return to NYC, but it still needs permission, law change to provide driverless rides

Waymo, the self-driving car unit of Google parent Alphabet, is returning to New York City.

Waymo, the self-driving car unit of Google parent Alphabet, is returning to New York City. But it won’t be offering rides to the paying public yet, as it currently does in four other cities. The company announced Wednesday that it has applied for a permit with the New York City Department of Transportation for its vehicles to operate autonomously with a “trained specialist” behind the wheel in Manhattan. Waymo says it does plan to eventually introduce a self-driving service for paid rides in New York City, even if the company doesn’t have a time frame for bringing it to the streets of the nation’s largest and most traffic-ridden city. It called the test “an important step towards one day serving New Yorkers.” Waymo last deployed its cars in New York in 2021. But that was only a test for data collection and weather testing while a human actually drove the vehicle, the company said. This year’s deployment in the nation’s most congested city will still be a test, but “if the permit is granted, (Waymo) would be (New York City)’s first testing deployment of autonomous vehicles,” the company said. Shares of Lyft (LYFT) and Uber (UBER) both fell following the announcement.