Waymo has applied or the DMV’s Driverless Autonomous Vehicle Tester Program in Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos and Los Altos Hills. While Sunnyvale is named in the application, this does not mean that driverless cars will arrive in Sunnyvale immediately. If the DMV approves the application, Waymo will start by doing 3D roadway mapping via manually driving vehicles and conducting appropriate testing with a test driver on board before conducting driverless testing in Sunnyvale.
As next steps, City staff will begin actively working with Waymo on the program specifics and a schedule for a community engagement event, where Sunnyvale can learn about Waymo, the test program, see the cars in-person, and get their questions answered.
Waymo is the self-driving unit of Google parent company Alphabet.
No-driver testing of autonomous cars became legal on April 2.