Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Waymo agreed to expand their four-year-long partnership on autonomous driving technologies, including an exclusive agreement on self-driving light commercial vehicles. FCA will integrate the L4 Waymo Driver capability with its Ram ProMaster commercial van platform, to introduce self-driving delivery vans.
Also, Waymo will be FCA's exclusive strategic partner for Level 4 autonomous technology (i.e., driverless) for its entire product portfolio.
Waymo is an Alphabet subsidiary that started out over 10 years ago as the Google Self-Driving Car Project. In addition to working with FCA, last month it established a separate partnership with Volvo Cars to develop self-driving, electric vehicles for ride-hailing.
Waymo Driver is the autonomous vehicle technology package it developed and that is the platform for Waymo One, an autonomous ride-hailing service; and Waymo Via, a trucking and local delivery service.
Since their collaboration started in 2016, FCA and Waymo have integrated Waymo Driver capability into FCA vehicles, notably the L4-ready, Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivan. They also established a commercial, autonomous ride-hailing service in "dozens of cities across diverse geographies and challenging weather conditions."
"By incorporating the Waymo Driver, the world’s leading self-driving technology, into our Pacifica minivans, we became the only partnership actually deploying fully autonomous technology in the real world, on public roads. With this next step, deepening our relationship with the very best technology partner in this space, we’re turning to the needs of our commercial customers by jointly enabling self-driving for light commercial vehicles, starting with the Ram ProMaster,” stated FCA's CEO Mike Manley.
