Waymo and Toyota Team Up: Are We One Step Closer to Flying Cars?

A Soldier's Eye on the Future

Well folks it seems like the future is coming faster than a Hydra jet. Waymo owned by Alphabet (that's Google's parent company for those of you who were frozen in ice for a few decades) and Toyota have announced a partnership to explore putting robotaxi tech into your everyday personal vehicles. Now I've seen a lot of crazy things in my time but self driving cars for everyone? That's something else. I remember when a car that could parallel park itself was considered a marvel! It is easy to forget that progress is not always linear; there are bumps in the road!

From Shield to Steering Wheel?

The idea is to combine Waymo's autonomous technology with Toyota's car making expertise to make driver assistance and self driving tech available to more people and maybe even put Toyota's "vehicles into our ride hailing fleet." As Captain America I'm all about protecting people and if these cars can reduce accidents I'm cautiously optimistic. But I'm also thinking 'Who's gonna stop the bad guys when everyone's just sitting back letting the car do all the work?' Guess I'll need to update my training regimen to include vehicle hacking.

Not Their First Rodeo

Waymo's been around the block partnering with companies like Jaguar Land Rover Mercedes Benz and even Hyundai. The Alphabet spokesman told CNBC that the Toyota partnership will not affect Waymo's plans to deploy Hyundai and Geely vehicles through the Waymo One ride hailing service in the future. Remember what Peggy Carter said "Compromise where you can. Where you can't don't. Even if everyone is telling you that something wrong is something right. Even if the whole world is telling you to move it is your duty to plant yourself like a tree look them in the eye and say 'No you move'."

Rides Rides and More Rides

Apparently Waymo's already serving about 250,000 paid rides a week in places like San Francisco Los Angeles Phoenix and Austin. That's up from 200,000 back in February! Makes you wonder if they'll start offering a 'Captain America Discount' soon. I'd probably still prefer my motorcycle but hey a guy can dream right?

The Musk Factor

Of course Elon Musk and Tesla are also in the mix. Apparently Musk criticized Waymo for being too expensive and promised 'fully autonomous rides in June in Austin.' That's ambitious even for a guy who shoots rockets into space. Tesla used to be seen as a leader in self driving tech but these days some say they're still not quite ready to take the driver out of the equation. As my pal Sam Wilson would say "Keep your eye on the ball Cap."

Is This Progress?

So what does all this mean? Well it looks like the race for autonomous vehicles is heating up and we might be closer than ever to a future where we can all sit back and let our cars do the driving. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing remains to be seen. One thing is for sure: I'll be keeping a close eye on this. After all someone has to make sure these robotaxis are following the rules of the road. And more importantly someone needs to make sure they are prepared to defend the world from a charging Thanos or Loki! Excelsior!