A Los Angeles-based tech entrepreneur claims he almost missed his flight after a mishap in a self-driving taxi.
“This autonomous vehicle said to heck with GPS,” wrote Johns. “The car just went around in circles, eight circles at that.”
In a video that accompanied the post, Johns can be seen sitting in the back seat of the self-driving car, growing increasingly frustrated as the vehicle makes several loops around a parking lot. “Why is this happening to me on a Monday?” he says to the camera.
Later in the video — as the car continues to drive in circles — Johns is able to call the “Waymo support" line and an employee attempts to troubleshoot the issue with the vehicle.
Waymo Vehicle.Mike Johns/TMX
Mike Johns/TMX
“I got a flight to catch. Why is this thing going in a circle — I’m getting dizzy,” Johns tells the company representative. “Has this been hacked? What’s going on? I feel like I’m in the movies.”
The support team member apologizes and admits that she cannot remotely “control the car,” instead asking John to press a button within the Waymo app on his end. She does, however, note that she is “finding a spot” to pull over and “temporarily pausing” the ride.
According to Johns’ post, he “nearly missed” his flight because of the debacle, though the company said that the incident only caused him a five-minute delay, perCNN.
Johns said he had sworn off the self-driving taxi service after the incident. “I’ll keep it old fashion and just Lyft or Uber,” he concluded his post.
Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty; Mike Johns/TMX
The mishap comes after aclip went viral in Augustdepicting nearly three dozen Waymo vehicles repeatedly honking at each other in a San Francisco parking lot at 4 a.m.
“The robotaxis in the Waymo lot are clustered and actually honking at each other,” Randol White, theFacebook userwho first posted the viral clip, captioned the video. “I would find it funny if it wasn’t 4 a.m.”
White’s neighbor, Christopher Cherry, toldNBC Bay Areathat he was initially “really excited” to welcome the self-driving vehicles into his neighborhood — but that they were honking at an increasing frequency.
waymo
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“We started out with a couple of honks here and there, and then as more and more cars started to arrive, the situation got worse, " he told the outlet. “It’s very distracting during the work day, but most importantly it wakes you up at four in the morning.”
source: people.com
