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Waymo will begin testing its robotaxi service in Denver and Seattle this week, CNBC reports.
In most of its operational cities, Waymo's fleet consists solely of Jaguar I-Pace vehicles. But in Denver and Seattle, the company will deploy a mixed fleet of Jaguar I-Pace and Zeekr RT vehicles. Both models will be equipped with the company's Waymo Driver autonomous driving technology. The Jaguar cars will have the fifth-generation system, while the Zeekr RT will have the sixth-generation version. Initially, though, all rides will have a human driver behind the wheel.
"We will begin driving manually before validating our technology and operations for fully autonomous services in the future," a company spokesperson tells CNBC, adding that up to a dozen cars will be made available in each city.
Waymo's blog posts announcing the tests don't mention public testing, so you can’t request a ride just yet. The company also received a permit to start testing its service in New York last month. For now, it's limited to parts of Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn.
In the Denver announcement, Waymo also mentioned that its systems have been put to the test during the winters in Michigan, upstate New York, and the Sierra Nevada, so they are "engineered to autonomously sustain operations in harsher climates.”
As of May, Waymo has a fleet of 1,500 I-PACE vehicles and completes 250,000 paid trips each week across Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin. Apart from New York, some of its other upcoming markets include Dallas, Miami, and Washington, DC.