He had a plane to catch — but his ride to the airport was stuck in a parking lot, driving in circles.
That was the experience of a passenger using Waymo, the Alphabet-owned autonomous taxi service that launched in San Francisco last year and has expanded its fleet to Los Angeles and Phoenix.
The passenger, Mike Johns, recorded the vehicle driving in loops in a parking lot in Scottsdale, Arizona, on Dec. 9 and posted video of the circular situation on LinkedIn.
Included was Johns' conversation with rider support. A company representative apologizes as Johns asks whether the car has been hacked and wonders whether someone’s playing a joke on him.
When the representative asks him to access his app to help solve the issue, Johns wonders why she can’t take over the vehicle herself.
“You don’t need my phone,” he says.
“I don’t have an option to control the car,” she responds.
The incident lasted roughly five minutes, according to the company, and Johns was ultimately driven to the airport, where, he said, he didn’t miss his flight.
According to Waymo, Johns wasn’t charged for his trip. The issue that prompted his vehicle to drive in loops has been addressed by a regularly scheduled software update, Waymo said.
