SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The self-driving car project that Google started seven years ago has grown into a company called Waymo, signaling its confidence that it will be able to bring robot-controlled vehicles to the masses within the next few years.

"We are getting close and we are getting ready," Waymo CEO John Krafcik said Tuesday after unveiling the company's identity.

To underscore his point, Krafcik revealed the project had hit a key milestone in the journey to having fully autonomous cars cruising around public roads. In a trip taken in October 2015 , a pod-like car with no steering wheel a...