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A buggy ride

“I’m getting dizzy”: Man films Waymo self-driving car driving around in circles

Waymo software fix addressed "looping events" after car kept circling parking lot.

Jon Brodkin – | 112
A screen inside a Waymo self-driving car shows an image of cars on the road, information on arrival time, and buttons labeled "Pull over" and "Support."
The dashboard in a Waymo self-driving car in San Francisco, California, on August 20, 2024. Smith Collection/Gado Credit: Getty Images | Smith Collection/Gado
The dashboard in a Waymo self-driving car in San Francisco, California, on August 20, 2024. Smith Collection/Gado Credit: Getty Images | Smith Collection/Gado

The Waymo self-driving company says it has fixed a problem that caused a car to repeatedly circle a parking lot for about five minutes while its rider was trying to get to an airport.

Last month, Mike Johns posted a video on LinkedIn showing what happened after he was picked up by a Waymo self-driving car in Scottsdale, Arizona. Johns' post said the car made eight circles. After a Waymo support agent helped get the car moving in the right direction, he was driven to the airport in time to make his flight.

"Why is this happening to me on a Monday? I'm in a Waymo car and this car is just going in circles... I got a flight to catch, why is this thing going in a circle? I'm getting dizzy," he said in the video.

During the video, Johns spoke with a Waymo customer-support representative. "It's circling around a parking lot. I've 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?" he told the rep. He also asked the Waymo rep if the company would "take care of the flight" if he missed it.

The support rep told Johns, "I don't have an option to control the car," but added, "I am trying to pull it over right now." The car appeared to come to a stop with about two seconds left in the short video, which you can watch here:

Waymo: Software update fixed looping problem

While the frustrating ride occurred about a month ago, it received attention in several news articles this past weekend. A CBS News Los Angeles report said that Johns "loves the idea of driverless cars and was really excited to ride in one... but now he says he won't take one again until he knows they worked the kinks out."

Ars Video

 

Johns, who is the founder and CEO of an AI consulting firm, told CBS News in an interview that Waymo lacks a "human connection" and that it's "a case of today's digital world, a half-baked product, and nobody meeting the customer, the consumers, in the middle."

Waymo says the problem only caused a delay of just over five minutes and that Johns was not charged for the trip. A spokesperson for Waymo, which is owned by Google parent Alphabet, told Ars today that the "looping event" occurred on December 9 and was later addressed during a regularly scheduled software update.

Waymo did not answer our question about whether the software update only addressed routing at the specific location the problem occurred at, or a more general routing problem that could have affected rides in other locations.

The problem affecting Johns' ride occurred near the user's pickup location, Waymo told us. The Waymo car took the rider to his destination after the roughly five-minute delay, the spokesperson said. "Our rider support agent did help initiate maneuvers that helped resolve the issue," Waymo said.

Rider would like an explanation

CBS News states that Johns is "still not certain he was communicating with a real person or AI" when he spoke to the support rep in the car. However, the Waymo spokesperson told Ars that "all of our rider support staff are trained human operators."

Waymo told Ars that the company tried to contact Johns after the incident and left him a voicemail. Johns still says that he never received an explanation of what caused the circling problem.

We emailed Johns today and received a reply from a public relations firm working on his behalf. "To date, Mike has not received an explanation as to the reason for the circling issue," his spokesperson said. His spokesperson confirmed that Johns did not miss his flight.

It wasn't clear from the video whether Johns tried to use the "pull over" functionality available in Waymo cars. "If at any time you want to end your ride early, tap the Pull over button in your app or on the passenger screen, and the car will find a safe spot to stop," a Waymo support site says.

Johns' spokesperson told us that "Mike was not immediately aware of the 'pull over' button," so "he did not have an opportunity to use it before engaging with the customer service representative over the car speaker."

While Waymo says all its agents are human, Johns' spokesperson told Ars that "Mike is still unsure if he was speaking with a human or an AI agent."

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Jon Brodkin Senior IT Reporter
Jon is a Senior IT Reporter for Ars Technica. He covers the telecom industry, Federal Communications Commission rulemakings, broadband consumer affairs, court cases, and government regulation of the tech industry.
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