EVwire brief: Waymo is bringing Google Gemini to all riders in its Ojai robotaxis while simultaneously pulling back the curtain on the custom computing hardware powering the vehicle.
Gemini is now available to all Ojai riders, after initially being introduced as an early-access feature. According to Waymo, riders can use the in-car assistant to adjust cabin functions, control media, ask questions about their surroundings and get trip information such as the destination and ETA.
Gemini remains separate from the Waymo Driver itself and does not control the vehicle’s driving or routing.
The timing is interesting because Waymo has also just published its most detailed look yet at what is sitting underneath the Ojai’s trunk. The company says its latest compute system has been designed specifically for autonomous driving, with ultra-low latency, redundancy and the ability to operate through extreme temperatures and constant vehicle vibration.
At the heart of the system is a new 5nm custom ASIC designed to process raw lidar, radar and camera data before feeding it into Waymo’s broader ML stack. Waymo says the ASIC delivers more than 1,000 TOPS of ML performance for front-end processing, while the latest system can process data from 13 high-resolution cameras simultaneously.
Waymo's purpose-built 5nm ASIC. Custom silicon, co-designed with its sensors and algorithms. Source
Context:
Waymo's Ojai is the company's first robotaxi designed specifically around autonomous ride-hailing rather than being a conventional passenger vehicle retrofitted for the job. The vehicle is built by Zeekr, Geely's premium EV brand, before being shipped to Magna's facility in Mesa, Arizona, where Waymo integrates its autonomous hardware.
The Ojai uses Waymo's sixth-generation Driver, with 13 cameras, six radar sensors and four LiDAR units, more than 40% fewer sensors than the previous-generation system while retaining the hardware needed for fully autonomous operation.
EVwire previously counted 953 Ojai vehicles at the Mesa facility earlier this month, including 684 already equipped with Waymo's autonomous hardware and apparently ready for deployment. That represented a substantial increase from roughly 500 Ojai vehicles counted at the factory in June.
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