Waymo Robotaxi Routed Passenger to Parking Garage Instead of Conference
A Waymo autonomous vehicle transported a passenger to a parking garage full of other robotaxis instead of to the Moscone Center conference where he was headed in San Francisco. The company said the garage was determined to be the quickest route to the destination, but was unable to explain why the error occurred.
What happened
Darren Findling, a lawyer from Michigan, booked a Waymo ride on Monday morning to travel from downtown San Francisco to the Moscone Center for a conference. Midway through the trip, the robotaxi abruptly pulled off the street and entered a parking garage containing multiple other Waymos with no human operators present.
Findling eventually contacted a Waymo representative through the vehicle, who remotely overrode the vehicle's routing and returned it to the correct route. Waymo told media that the vehicle had determined the parking garage was the quickest route to Findling's destination, though the company stated it could not explain why this malfunction occurred.
Reported impact
Findling described the experience as disorienting, saying he went "from normal humanity into robot world" and was unsure what he was supposed to do while trapped in the garage with only autonomous vehicles. Despite the incident, he said the company provided him with a free ride and two additional free rides as compensation.
Index analysis
Waymo stated it provides approximately 250,000 driverless rides across five metropolitan areas each month and characterized such routing errors as rare. The incident demonstrates a vulnerability in the autonomous vehicle's navigation systems under certain conditions.
Classification
Sources and evidence
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