A Los Angeles man who used a self-driving taxi to take him to the airport got an unexpected surprise when the ride took a crazy detour that left him dizzy and caused him to nearly miss his flight.
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In a LinkedIn post, tech entrepreneur Mike Johns shared a video of himself in the backseat of a Waymo vehicle, the self-driving car company owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet. But instead of heading to Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport, the car went around in circles in a parking lot.
“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,” Johns wrote on LinkedIn. “This autonomous vehicle said to heck with GPS, the car just went around in circles, eight circles at that.”
According to CNN, Waymo recognized something wasn’t right with Johns’ ride and a customer support representative reached out to him to troubleshoot the issue.
“I got a flight to catch. Why is this thing going in a circle — I’m getting dizzy,” Johns is heard telling the representative in his video. “Has this been hacked? What’s going on? I feel like I’m in the movies.”
The representative tells Johns that she is looking for a place to pull the car over and “pause the ride” but that he will have to use the Waymo app to resolve the issue. Although the detour delayed his trip, Johns was fortunately still able to make his flight.
Since its launch, Waymo has had to work out some of the kinks of this new technology, including a June 2024 recall of over 600 cars after one of their cars hit a telephone pole in Phoenix, Arizona while pulling over to pick up a passenger, according to CNN.
As for Johns, he says that while he’s all for embracing technology, next time he’ll get to the airport the old fashioned way.
“My Waymo experience sucked. Mind you I was on my way to the airport and nearly missed my flight. I’ll keep it old fashion and just #Lyft or #Uber,” Johns wrote on LinkedIn.
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