After spending eight years honing its self-driving technology, seven months laying the groundwork for operations, and a month on a final marketing push, Waymo says its cars are ready for a major milestone: truly driverless operations on public roads.
Indeed, officials from Waymo, the company sprung from Google?s self-driving-car project late last year, announced Tuesday that some of their test vehicles are embarking on just those sorts of journeys throughout the metropolitan Phoenix area. No human safety drivers will be on board while the company?s vehicles trundle along public roads. In short, the self-driving era has begun.
The Chrysler Pacifica hybrid minivans outfitted with Waymo?s technology ?can handle any situation, no matter how challenging,? Dmitri Dolgov, vice president of engineering at Waymo, told us when we toured Waymo’s once secret test facility and rode in its driverless vans at an event last week that served as prelude to Tuesday?s news. ?Not once, not twice. All the time. That?s the difference between a demonstration and a product.? Not all the company?s vehicles in the Phoenix area will immediately shift to self-driving travel. It?s unknown exactly how many of the vehicles will operate without safety drivers and how many will retain them; a Waymo spokesperson did not respond to a request for specifics on Tuesday.

But the company has outlined a general cadence in which some cars begin driverless test operations Tuesday and participants in the...