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A Los Angeles man trying to get to an Arizona airport in one of Waymo’s driverless taxis last month got stuck in an incredibly frustrating loop where the car just went around in circles. The man also says he almost missed his flight back home. And while Waymo tells Gizmodo that the issue has been resolved, it’s still unclear what went wrong.
Mike Johns, a tech entrepreneur in LA, wrote about his experience LinkedInalso including a video of the test. This video went viral on social media platforms.
“My Monday was going well until I got into one of Waymo’s ‘unmanned’ cars. I got in, squeezed (safety first) and the saga began,” Johns wrote. “This self-driving vehicle said the GPS screwed up, the car went in circles, eight circles later.”
Johns, who did not immediately respond to a message sent through his website, said he wondered if someone was playing a prank on him.
“Someone’s kidding, is this car hacked? It (felt) like a scene from a sci-fi thriller. My Waymo experience sucked. Mind you I was on my way to the airport and I almost I missed my flight. I’ll keep it old fashioned and just Lyft or Uber,” Johns continued.
Waymo, which belongs to the Google Alphabet company, told Gizmodo that the rider was not ready for his trip and tried to contact Johns but they did not connect yet. Waymo also emphasizes that the ride lasted about five minutes. Johns said ABC15 Arizona that he was frustrated by the experience and “It’s like the people are the experiment”.
Johns also said CBS News Los Angeles that he didn’t like the attitude of the tech support person (or robot) he was meeting and wasn’t sure if he was talking to a human or AI during the walkthrough.
“Where’s the empathy? Where’s the human connection to this?” Johns told CBS News. “It’s just, again, a case of today’s digital world. A half-baked product and no one who meets the customer, the consumers, in the middle.”
This isn’t the first time Waymo cars have gotten very confused and apparently gotten stuck in loops. In December, the auto news magazine Jalopnik reported on a Waymo vehicle that appeared to be stuck in a roundabout in Arizona, looking at least. 37 times. That vehicle had no passengers at the time.
There have also been more disturbing incidents involving driverless cars, like the time a Waymo rear-ended a cyclist in San Francisco. February 2024. There was still time in May 2024 when a Waymo vehicle hit a phone surveywhich will prompt a reminder of the company’s mapping technology.
Johns compared his experience to a science fiction movie, which is not uncommon when people experience strange things with new technology. And it can be hard to tell what went wrong from the passenger’s perspective. When I picked up a Waymo in Los Angeles a couple of months ago, the vehicle broke down just as I was about to get in. The car decided it should instead take a turn lane, a much more dangerous decision that a human driver probably wouldn’t have made.
But this is certainly the future, if only because driverless companies like Waymo can undercut the price of services like Uber and Lyft. At least until they put human drivers completely out of business. At that point, they can just raise the price like they did after Uber decimated the taxi industry. Time passes.
