The two have signed an exclusive agreement to develop and test class 1—3 light commercial vehicles. This is different from the original 2016 contract for Waymo to buy up to 62,000 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans for its self-driving ride-hailing service. With the first deal, FCA gained the huge fleet sale, and the start of a partnership, but did not gain rights to the equipment Waymo installed. Nor was it exclusive. Waymo has always said it wants to work with many players in the industry. Among its subsequent moves was the 2018 deal for 20,000 Jaguar I-Pace electric SUVs from Jaguar Land Rover for similar testing. And Waymo recently announced it is working with Volvo Cars Group to develop a self-driving electric vehicle designed for ride-hailing use.
The way Waymo, a division of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, works is it focuses on the artificial intelligence and hardware such as radar, lidar, and cameras which create, in effect, an automated “driver.” The automakers design, develop, and build the vehicles that all of this stuff and know-how goes into. Waymo did develop a prototype car called the Firefly before concluding the better path was to work with automakers.
This new deal takes the FCA-Waymo partnership to a new level that should benefit both companies. The ProMaster will be equipped with Level 4 Waymo Driver to be a driverless delivery van for commercial customers, including Waymo Via, an automated logistics business. Level 4 on the SAE autonomy scale is “High Automation” where the “vehicle is capable of performing all driving functions under certain conditions.” It sits just below SAE Level 5, the highest form of automation where no driver is ever necessary.
Is an Electric Ram ProMaster Coming?
Most companies use electric vehicles, which have an abundance of electronics already, as the base for autonomous vehicles. The Waymo news suggests the ProMaster van will go electric. That is a not a big speculative leap: The ProMaster is based on the European-market Fiat Ducato, which is adding an electric version, the E-Ducato, for 2020.
Waymo has been developing tech for commercial goods delivery for a while and among its more than 600 self-driving vehicles on the road to date are some Pacificas with the back seats removed as part of a pilot project to deliver packages for UPS. Importantly, Waymo has committed to deploying its Level 4 technology across FCA’s full global product portfolio. Again, in the past, Waymo just bought the fleets but was not obligated to share the tech it was developing and testing. FCA has not developed its own autonomous tech and is making Waymo its exclusive partner to supply systems across the FCA fleet.
Future Autonomous Vehicles Planned
Fiat Chrysler officials are not saying which additional vehicles beyond the ProMaster are first in line to add the autonomous Waymo Driver tech or provide a timeline, other than to say work has started to “imagine future FCA product for the movement of people and goods operated by Waymo Driver.”
“FCA was our first OEM partner, and we’ve come a long way together,” said Waymo CEO John Krafcik. “The Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans were the first vehicles in our Waymo One fleet, and, guided by the Waymo Driver, have now safely and reliably driven more fully autonomous miles than any other vehicle on the planet. Today, we’re expanding our partnership with FCA with the Waymo Driver as the exclusive L4 autonomy solution for this global automotive company. Together, we’ll introduce the Waymo Driver throughout the FCA brand portfolio, opening up new frontiers for ride-hailing, commercial delivery, and personal-use vehicles around the world.”
FCA CEO Mike Manley said with the Pacifica, the two companies put fully autonomous technology in the real world, on public roads. This next step is designed to help FCA’s commercial customers, starting with the Ram ProMaster. And it will allow FCA to deploy Level 4 autonomous technology across the entire product portfolio.
