There’s still a pulse in Waymo’s self-driving car dream and Stellantis believes it

Stellantis, the automotive giant encompassing 14 brands like Chrysler, Jeep, and Ram, along with autonomous vehicle tech company Waymo, aren’t just maintaining their collaboration; they’re intensifying it, CEO Carlos Tavares revealed in a recent interview.

Waymo, owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, isn’t currently running a commercial delivery service with its self-driving cars. Last summer, it closed its self-driving trucks program, Waymo Via, to focus on expanding its robotaxi service. In May 2023, Waymo and Uber struck a partnership that allows Uber users to hail driverless cars in Phoenix. Although this deal included plans for future delivery via Uber Eats, according to a Waymo spokesperson, it hasn’t launched yet.

The partnership between the two companies began in 2016 when Waymo ordered thousands of custom Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans for its driverless vehicle fleet. Although the initial plan was for Fiat Chrysler, now Stellantis, to supply Waymo with thousands of minivans, only a couple hundred were delivered. Despite this, the minivan played a crucial role in Waymo’s commercialization strategy, providing tens of thousands of rides to the public over its lifespan.

Waymo shifted away from the Chrysler Pacifica program in May 2023, and now operates its robotaxi service using all-electric Jaguar I-Pace vehicles.

The “deepened” collaboration will focus on autonomous Ram delivery vans, a goal initially revealed in 2020 but later lost attention. Talks about this upgraded agreement have concentrated partly on a key issue regarding driverless delivery: the process of transferring packages from the vehicle to the customer.

In an interview, Tavares mentioned that the challenge lies in figuring out how to remove the parcel from the van once it reaches the destination. This aspect has been a topic of discussion that presents challenges, and they are now “enhancing our partnership agreement” to address it.