A Los Angeles tech entrepreneur says he became trapped inside a self-driving Waymo car after the autonomous vehicle refused to drop him off at the airport.
Mike Johns nearly missed his flight back to Los Angeles after the Waymo autonomous car he took to the airport began circling aimlessly in the airport parking lot, the LA Times reports.
The captive rider recorded himself calling Waymo customer service to report his conundrum and posted the video to his LinkedIn page.
“I got a flight to catch. Why is this thing going in a circle? I’m getting dizzy,” Johns says in the video. “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 customer service associate tells Johns she would try to pull the car over remotely, but apparently had trouble actually getting the vehicle to stop.
Johns was on a return trip to LA from Scottsdale, Arizona when the incident happened, CBS News reports.
He shared the video and his thoughts about the experience in a LinkedIn post.
"My Monday was fine till i got into one of Waymo's 'humanless' cars. I get in, buckle up (safety first) and the saga begins," he wrote. "This autonomous vehicle said to heck with GPS, the car just went around in circles, eight circles at that. Is someone pulling a prank, is this car hacked?"
Johns was also disappointed that Waymo, in his opinion, did not do enough to help him during and after the incident.
"You'd think by now Waymo would email, text or call for a follow-up. Nope, customer service is automated and ran by AI. No hashtag#empathy hashtag#noemotion hashtag#robotic hashtag#heartless hashtag#waymo hashtag#customercarenot," he wrote.
A Waymo representative told the LA Times that Johns was only delayed by five minutes and that he was then driven to his destination. The company also said the cars driving in circles has been addressed in a recent software update.
Johns initially claimed that he had missed his flight, but later updated his post on LinkedIn to confirm that he had almost missed his flight.
He said in his post that he'd likely only be riding with Ubers or Lyfts following his experience with Waymo.
The Independent has reached out to Johns for comment.
The driverless car company was in the news recently after a man — also in LA — tried to drive off in a self-driving Jaguar on Thursday, according to CBS News.
The man allegedly climbed into the Waymo through the passenger side and then slid into the driver's seat, which is typically empty in Waymo cars.
When someone does crawl into the driver's seat in a Waymo, the company's rider support team is notified and they ask the person to exit the car. If the person doesn't exit, Waymo calls the police.
The company told the LA Times that in the more than five million times riders have taken Waymo cars, there have only been a handful of incidents in which a passenger moves into the driver's seat.
