Watch this self-driving Waymo taxi circle a parking lot instead of taking its passenger to the airport

WTF?! We’re now as close to the year 2050 as the year 2020. Technology has come a long way, but it’s far from perfect. Just ask the man who couldn’t get to the airport on time because the self-driving Waymo he was in kept driving around a parking lot in circles.

Mike Johns was heading back home to LA from Scottsdale, Arizona in December, traveling to the airport in one of Waymo’s autonomous vehicles.

As Johns described the incident on LinkedIn, he entered the driverless car, buckled up, and set off on his journey. But the taxi had other ideas: it started driving in circles around a parking lot.

Johns captured the disturbing moment on video, during which he calls Waymo customer service. “I got a flight to catch. Why is this thing going in a circle? I’m getting dizzy,” Johns said. “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 Waymo representative asks Johns to use the company’s app to try to stop the car as she apparently does not have an option to control the vehicle. The video ends with the rep saying she is trying to pull the Waymo over.

Johns said the Waymo circled the parking lot a dizzying eight times before the issue was resolved. He writes in the main post that he “nearly” missed his flight, though he says he missed it in the comments section. Other reports suggest that he did make the flight. There are also a few comments asking why he never used the Pull Over button on the passenger screen.

Johns ends his post by stating that Waymo never followed up on the incident with an email, text, or call as its customer service is automated and run by AI.

A Waymo spokesperson told The Los Angeles Times that Johns was delayed by just five minutes, he was not charged for the ride, and the software error that caused the problem has since been addressed. The company also claimed it had tried to follow up with him via voicemail.

In August, Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said the company had surpassed the 100,000 paid trips per week threshold. The milestone was especially impressive considering Waymo only crossed the 50,000 paid trips a week mark in May.

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