Now that GM’s Cruise is gone, it seems that Alphabet’s Waymo is starting to have more and more issues of its own. The latest issue with its driverless cars affected a man in Los Angeles who almost missed his flight because his Waymo wouldn’t stop circling a parking lot.
Nearly a month ago LA tech entrepreneur Mike Johns posted a video to his Linkedin showing him attempting to get in contact with Waymo’s customer support while in the back of one of the company’s driverless taxis. In the video, he briefly explains what’s going on: the Waymo is stuck going in circles in a random parking lot in Scottsdale and he can’t get out of it. From the LA Times:
I got a flight to catch. Why is this thing going in a circle? I’m getting dizzy,” Johns said. “It’s circling around a parking lot. I got my seat belt on. I can’t get out of the car. Has this been hacked? What’s going on? I feel like I’m in the movies. Is somebody playing a joke on me?
The Times says that Waymo’s customer service was eventually able to get control of the vehicle after a few minutes. According to CBS News, Johns was heading to the airport. The glitched out Waymo nearly caused him to miss his flight, but after control was restored the Waymo got him to the airport just in time.
Johns told CBS that he took issue with how Waymo handled the situation, saying there was a lack of empathy. He also said he wasn’t sure if the customer service agent was real or AI, which he found concerning. “Where’s the empathy? Where’s the human connection to this? It’s just, again, a case of today’s digital world. A half-baked product and nobody meeting the customer, the consumers, in the middle.”
Johns said that he “would love to see services like Waymo succeed” but he doesn’t have plans to use its services again until its issues have been ironed out. He also mentioned that Waymo has yet to contact him about what happened despite the attention his video received online.
Meanwhile, in a statement to the LA Times, Waymo said John’s car had been affected by a software glitch and that the company had been trying to follow up with him, leaving him a voicemail. Waymo says he wasn’t charged for the ride.
This latest glitch is one of a few that have happened with Waymo’s driverless cars in recent weeks. On January 3, a man attempted to steal a Waymo in downtown LA but was caught and arrested by police. A few weeks before that, an empty Waymo got stuck circling a roundabout 37 times. Luckily that Waymo had no passengers along for the ride.
