Waymo traces its origin to 2009, when, in its own words, “the Google self-driving car project begins.” The early team set itself a concrete test: drive autonomously over ten uninterrupted 100-mile routes, using a fleet of modified Toyota Prius cars. In 2016 the effort was carved out of Google as an independent company under Alphabet, with what Waymo describes as “a mission to make it safe and easy for people and things to move around.”
Waymo’s stated ambition is to “be the world’s most trusted driver.” It positions itself around long-term goals - offering freedom of movement, building a sustainable transportation system, and improving road safety - rather than a quick product launch. The company stresses that it has been at this “over a decade” and is “in it for the long haul.”
Waymo represents the slow, expensive second half of the autonomy story. The flashy demonstrations of the DARPA Grand Challenge and the 2010 Google reveal proved that a car could drive itself under controlled conditions. Turning that into a service that operates day after day, in real cities, with paying passengers and no safety driver, took far longer and far more capital. Waymo is the entity carrying that work forward, and its history is a useful reminder that in robotics the gap between a working demo and reliable deployment is measured in years.