Waymo
The self driving car
What is it?
Waymo is a car company that
has produced a self-driving
vehicle using many elaborate
layers of technology. Becoming
the worlds first self driving car.
Waymo operates similar to
Uber or Taxi, offering rides 24/7.
Technology involved
What is required
Before Waymo operates in a
new area, the company
compiles all the necessary
information to create a detailed
map, including lights, stop signs,
curbs and more. Additionally
they match this map with realtime sensor data and artificial
intelligence to determine its
exact location and road.
(Waymo, n.d.)
nse
The Waymo Driver uses an imme
radar,
amount of sensors including: lidar,
ievers.
cameras, and external audio rec
ption of
This allows for an accurate perce
viours.
the environment, roads and beha
Furthermore Waymo uses Large
ualLanguage Models (LLMs) and Vis
the
Language models (VLMs) (Behind
24).
Innovation: AI & ML at Waymo, 20
Visual-Language Models
Large Language Models
LLMs are predictor models, compiling
immense amounts of information from
texts written by people, including: online
books, wikipedias, websites and more.
These LLMs are then fine tuned for their
specific task. (Stinson, C. (2024). This has
proven effective for Waymo as they have
trained their LLM to aid in prediction of
road and human behaviours using real
world knowledge (Behind the Innovation:
AI & ML at Waymo, 2024).
VLMs are AI models that blend
computer vision and natural
language processing (Caballar
& Stryker, 2026). Waymo utilizes
this by pairing their visual data
from all their sensors to real text
data, allowing for the most
effective set of tools to operate
their vehicles effectively
(Waymo, n.d.).
Testing
d traing
Before hitting the roadsan
Waymo is used in simulation,
tested in over 40, 000 differen
t simulations,
amounting to over 20 billion m
iles. Furthermore they
have ran thousands of crash
avoidance tests,
including cars, pedestrians an
d other obstacles. Now
it is ready to hit the real streets
where they have
driven over four million miles, co
nstantly collecting
new data and improving intell
igence (Waymo, n.d.).
Putting it all together
With all the compiled
information from above,
Waymo is now ready to take on
the roads. The system uses all
the knowledge it has to self
drive passengers from point A
to point B, revolutionizing the
transportation industry.
Safety
nue
Waymo is not perfect, but will conti
y
to improve and get smarter as the
mo
continue to operate. However Way
has proven to be significantly safer
.). As
than human drivers (Waymo, n.d
ea
the technology improves we will se
roads
decrease in accidents and safer
for everyone.
What the future holds
Waymo’s trips per week
have linearly been
increasing since release.
The company aims to
continue this growth and
expand to 20 new cities
(Ohnsman, 2025). As the car
gets safer and there is an
increase in clientele, the
future looks very bright for
Waymo.