Waymo, the autonomous car making company and subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet, has announced a long-term partnership with automobile makers Jaguar Land Rover to make almost 20,000 autonomous cars by 2020 for Waymo's driver-less transportation service.
Both the companies will work together to design and engineer self-driving vehicles and the car that will be used for this program will be the recently launched I-Pace.
Waymo has earlier worked on five different vehicle types with their driver-less technology, and now they have added an SUV, the I-Pace, to the portfolio which the company calls “ the world’s first electric premium self-driving car”.
Although these cars are new, they’re building on nearly a decade of self-driving experience, first is Google and now it’s Waymo. They’ll be equipped with Waymo’s technology, the world’s most experienced driver, with the most powerful sensors and AI software in the world.John Krafcik, CEO, Waymo
This is a production-ready vehicle which will begin testing this year and will become part of Waymo’s driver-less fleet soon.
The company will perform on-road testing and capturing real-world data which will allow Waymo and JLR engineers to refine technology and deliver optimum safety and reliability.
Minus Waymo’s tech in the car, it comes with a pair of synchronous permanent magnet electric motors at the front which combines with the rear axle to output maximum power of 395 bhp and make maximum of 700 Nm of torque.
Each electric motor weighs about 38kg. The car also features an all-wheel drive system. The I-Pace is capable of going from 0-100 kmph in less than 5 seconds.
The SUV is estimated to have an overall range of over 500 km and is backed by 90 kWh lithium-ion batteries that can be charged up to 80 percent in just 45 minutes.
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