Courtesy of Waymo
Waymo is expanding its self-driving car fleet with a partnership with Avis Budget Group, which will provide maintenance services for Waymo cars at Avis and Budget car rental locations.
Reaching more "drivers": By partnering with a rental car company with thousands of locations, Waymo can get more people to experiment with its self-driving car technology. For Avis Budget Group, the partnership allows technicians to get hands-on experience servicing driverless vehicles, and also helping to offset declining rental car business. Avis also owns on-demand rental car service Zipcar, a relationship that could later help Waymo expand its technologies to a broader network of customers.
Where: Waymo has a public trial of its self-driving cars in Phoenix, Arizona, and recently announced it is adding Chrysler Pacifica minivans to build a 600-vehicle fleet. Avis will retrofit select facilities in Phoenix to house the minivans, Bloomberg reported.