FCA
Late Tuesday night, Waymo and Fiat Chryler Automobiles announced that they are strengthening the partnership between the two companies that started in 2016. Waymo will be the only FCA autonomous driving technology partner to develop the so-called L4 (Design Domain geofenced or otherwise operational) limited autonomous driving technology). In addition, Waymo and FCA will develop autonomous Ram ProMaster commercial vans for driverless delivery.
“With this next step, deepening our relationship with the best technology partner in this space, we are turning to the needs of our commercial customers by enabling autonomous driving of light commercial vehicles, starting with the Ram ProMaster. Adding Waymo’s commitment to Partnering with us to deploy their fully autonomous L4 technology across our entire product portfolio, our partnership is setting the pace for safe and sustainable mobility solutions that will help define the automotive world for years and decades to come, “said Mike, FCA CEO. Manley in a statement.
“FCA was our first OEM partner and we have come a long way together. Today, we are expanding our partnership with FCA with Waymo Driver as the exclusive L4 autonomy solution for this global automotive company. Together, we will introduce the Waymo Driver across the entire portfolio of the FCA brand, opening new frontiers for passenger transportation, commercial delivery and personal use vehicles worldwide, “said Waymo CEO John Krafcik.
Although FCA was Waymo’s first OEM partner, in 2019 the automaker also partnered with Aurora, another autonomous vehicle startup. Like Waymo, Aurora has been integrating its sensors and autonomous driving stack into Chrysler Pacifica minivans, and the two companies had plans to develop light commercial autonomous vehicles. However, Kirsten Korosec at TechCrunch reports that while Aurora will continue to use Pacificas for its test vehicles, it will no longer develop driverless pickup trucks with FCA.
Next year, FCA will complete its merger with Groupe PSA, the French company that includes Peugeot and Citroen to form a company called Stellantis. According to Korosec, the terms of the Waymo-FCA partnership should mean that all Stellantis brands will theoretically have access to the Waymo Driver.
