Waymo, Alphabet's subsidiary that develops self-driving cars, has extended its agreement with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA), ordering an additional 62,000 minivans to add to its fleet and which will be used as automatic taxis. The two companies have also begun to discuss opportunities to start selling self-driving vehicles to individual customers. Waymo has so far been very vague about its plans to license its technologies to auto makers, but it will still take a few more years before we see self-driving vehicles owned by individual users.
Waymo has some of the most advanced and promising technology solutions for self-driving cars, recently tested on approximately 600 FCA minivans in different areas of the United States. The economic size of the new agreement between Waymo and FCA has not been disclosed, but considering that each Chrysler Pacifica costs around $ 40,000, analysts estimate that the figure could be around $ 1 billion. However, the agreement does not provide for an exclusive, so Waymo will also be able to test its systems on other cars produced by other companies.
