The autonomous car indus­try has seen some sig­nif­i­cant set­backs in the last few months, but Way­mo is mov­ing for­ward with plans to deploy rid­er-only test­ing for its self-dri­ving vehi­cles on Phoenix free­ways. 

Accord­ing to an arti­cle in the Ari­zona Repub­lic by Cori­na Vanek, the com­pa­ny says the first rid­ers will be Way­mo employ­ees. “Way­mo employ­ees will be able to hail autonomous rides on free­ways around Phoenix and will pro­vide feed­back to the com­pa­ny before rid­er-only free­way trips are offered to the pub­lic.”

Adding free­ways to the cov­er­age net­work will allow for longer rides and con­nect more des­ti­na­tions, the com­pa­ny says. Way­mo is already per­mit­ted to oper­ate in rough­ly 225 square miles cov­er­ing Phoenix, Tempe, Mesa, Chan­dler, and Scotts­dale. “By Octo­ber 2023, Way­mo vehi­cles had dri­ven 5.34 mil­lion miles in the Phoenix metro, accord­ing to data released by the com­pa­ny in Decem­ber.” Unlike its com­peti­tors, Way­mo has large­ly avoid­ed fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tions or recalls.