Google will launch in carpooling with Waze – Le Figaro

The navigation app Waze, owned by Google, will offer a carpool service to San Francisco in the fall. Uber different, Waze will nevertheless be able to compete.

Google takes the road carpool. The Web giant will launch Carpool, a matchmaking service between drivers and passengers in the San Francisco area, as indicated by the Wall Street Journal. This service will work with Waze, a navigation application bought in 2013 by Google. Tested since May by 25,000 employees of Google, the service is open to drivers and passengers in the fall.

Carpool may potentially overshadow Uber, even if it is not the target of Google, which is also among its investors. Unlike Uber drivers, paid to race like the taxis, those Carpool be paid a participation fee. These will amount to 54 cents per mile (48 cents for 1.6 kilometers), according to the compensation fixed by the tax authorities.

The already tested carpooling Google in Israel

The driver can not make a living using Carpool, but simply amortize its fuel costs. The same principle governs other platforms carpool as BlaBlaCar in France. The platform does not withhold commission. To prevent its service is used for business purposes, the drivers will be limited to two trips per day and these trips will not be available between home and the workplace.

Waze do is not his first foray into carpooling. The Israeli company, acquired by Google in 2013 for one billion dollars. The application, which has 70 million users in a hundred countries, was originally designed as a GPS, whose operation is based largely on the community. Drivers can for example report an accident or a traffic jam or verify the accuracy of the maps.

Google faces Uber on autonomous car

Google could launch Carpool n be a warm-up lap. This carpooling service reflects the search engine ambitions in mobility, a sector that invests in developing its own autonomous cars. However, the autonomous car is also one of the priorities of Uber. In May, the company VTC unveiled its first prototype car without a driver. In recent days, the Pittsburgh residents can travel on board. A hundred such cars famous Hard the American city by the end of the year.