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Waymo’s cars are driven without humans. But when a departing passenger leaves a door open, the car won’t move until a person closes it. For that task, Waymo is turning to gig workers from companies like DoorDash. The Alphabet-owned self-driving car company confirmed on Thursday that it’s running a pilot in Atlanta to compensate delivery drivers for closing Waymo doors that are left ajar. DoorDash drivers are notified when a Waymo in the area has an open door so the vehicles can quickly get back on the road, the company said. That acknowledgement came after a Reddit post showed a...

An admission by a Waymo executive during a U.S. Senate hearing has drawn renewed scrutiny to how autonomous vehicles operate when technology alone is not enough. On Wednesday, Feb. 4, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation convened a hearing on the safety and oversight of autonomous vehicles. Testimony included representatives from Tesla, the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association and members of academia. Also appearing was Dr. Mauricio Peña, chief safety officer at Waymo, the Alphabet-owned autonomous driving company. During questioning, Sen. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, asked what happens when a Waymo vehicle encounters a driving situation it cannot...

Waymo‘s Chief Safety Officer disclosed Wednesday that some of the remote operators who assist its self-driving vehicles in navigating difficult scenarios are based in the Philippines. Mauricio Peña, the company’s Chief Safety Officer, confirmed under questioning that the Alphabet subsidiary employs human operators abroad to provide guidance to its robotaxis when they encounter challenging driving situations. Ad ends in 5 Peña noted that the vehicles remain in control of all driving tasks at all times. “They provide guidance. They do not remotely drive the vehicles,” Peña told the Senate committee. “The Waymo vehicle is always in charge of the dynamic...

Alphabet-owned Waymo has informed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that one of its driverless vehicles “struck a child near an elementary school” in Santa Monica, California The Jan. 23 incident is now being investigated by the U.S. vehicle safety authority. According to records posted to the NHTSA website, the child sustained minor injuries. The Waymo collision occurred within two blocks of an elementary school during normal school drop-off hours, while other children, a crossing guard and several double-parked vehicles were nearby. “The child ran across the street from behind a double-parked SUV towards the school and was struck by...

An autonomous Waymo taxi took a wrong turn and drive straight into an active fire scene in Los Angeles, California. A driverless Waymo vehicle turned onto Melrose Avenue in Hollywood and past road flares, finding itself in the midst of an active fire scene earlier this week, according to a report by ABC 7. The robotaxi reportedly drove into an area that the Los Angeles Fire Department had blocked off, and appeared to have one passenger in the backseat. Witnesses told the outlet that the Waymo car stayed inside the closed area of the fire scene for about ten minutes...

Waymo is shipping a software update to help its robotaxis navigate disabled traffic lights during power outages “more decisively,” the company said Tuesday in a blog post that explains why its self-driving vehicles got stuck at intersections during a blackout in San Francisco this past weekend. Waymo said the self-driving system in its robotaxis treats dead stop lights as four-way stops, just like humans are supposed to. That should have allowed the robotaxis to operate normally in spite of the massive outage. Instead, many of the vehicles requested a “confirmation check” from Waymo’s fleet response team to make sure what...

Waymo's fleet of autonomous robotaxis can navigate city streets and compete with human taxi drivers, but they become stranded when a passenger leaves a door ajar -- prompting the company to pay tow truck operators around $20 to $24 through an app called Honk just to push a door shut. The owner of a towing company in Inglewood, California, completes up to three such jobs a week for Waymo, sometimes freeing vehicles by removing seat belts caught in doors. Another Los Angeles tow operator said locating stuck robotaxis can take 10 minutes to an hour because the precise location isn't...

Waymo, the operator of driverless ride-hailing vehicles, was also impacted by the massive power outage in San Francisco. Numerous people reported on social media seeing the autonomous cars sitting at intersections, apparently confused because the traffic lights were out. On Saturday night, the Mountain View-based company shared on its app that it has paused service. As of 6 p.m. on Sunday, Waymo service has been restored. Waymo issued a statement to ABC7's Suzanne Phan, writing: "We are resuming ride-hailing service in the San Francisco Bay Area. Yesterday's (Saturday) power outage was a widespread event that caused gridlock across San Francisco,...

Metro Long Island Politics World News Search Type to Search Search US News San Francisco power outage left 130,000 in the dark as self-driving cars stalled in middle of streets By Nicholas McEntyre Published Dec. 20, 2025, 11:30 p.m. ET Today's Video Headlines 00:22 / 00:49 San Francisco plunged into darkness when nearly 30 percent of the city was struck by a power outage, which brought vital transportation, such as self-driving cars, to a grinding halt on Saturday night. Over 130,000 houses and businesses were left in the dark, largely in the northwest part of San Francisco, including the Richmond,...

Waymo is hitting the brakes on its robotaxi software and issuing a voluntary recall after school bus safety concerns came to light earlier this year. The recall won’t necessarily pull cars from the road but will instead see them updated. It comes after an investigation by Nexstar’s KXAN found the company’s driverless vehicles illegally passed school buses with their stop arms out in Austin, Texas. The Austin Independent School District said similar incidents occurred at least 19 times this school year, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened an investigation in October. In November, cameras captured a Waymo...

SAN FRANCISCO — Police in Northern California were understandably perplexed when they pulled over a Waymo taxi after it made an illegal U-turn, only to find no driver behind the wheel and therefore, no one to ticket. The San Bruno Police Department wrote in a now-viral weekend social media post that officers were conducting a DUI operation early Saturday when a self-driving Waymo made the illegal turn in front of them. Officers stopped the vehicle but declined to write a ticket as their "citation books don't have a box for 'robot'." "That's right … no driver, no hands, no clue,"...

Five years after its $1.3 billion acquisition of Zoox, Amazon has officially entered the U.S. robotaxi race, which to date has been dominated by Alphabet’s Waymo. Zoox’s first public launch kicks off today on the Las Vegas strip. The company is offering free rides from a few select locations, with plans to expand more broadly across the city in the coming months. Riders will eventually have to pay, but Zoox said it’s waiting on regulatory approval to take that step. Amazon is jumping into a market that’s all about the future, but one where Waymo has a major head start,...

This week, a statement announcing former Vice-President Kamala Harris' decision not to run for California governor turned out to be fake. The initial posting of the announcement created quite a stir, but Harris' spokesperson Kristen Allen moved quickly to intervene before it could gain much traction. Allen expressed surprise that "the formerly reliable AI that we have been using to generate content for Kamala to help keep her in the news apparently went rogue with a post we had not previously seen or approved. The triggering event appears to have been Kamala's recent characterization of the recent riots in Los...

If you live in Northern California, you know this already. In a few years, driverless cars will be everywhere. You will likely use them if you travel to the city. If you live in a town of any substantial size, you or someone you know will likely use them.The numbers on the increase where they are currently permitted are simply amazing. In less than a year, the Google company called Waymo has increased its weekly ride volume from 10,000 in August 2023 to more than 250,000 today. It has passed 10 million successful trips. These cars are everywhere on the...

The Los Angeles Police Department also urged people to steer clear of downtown because burning lithium-ion batteries can release toxic fumes.Waymo has cut off taxi service to parts of Los Angeles after five of its self-driving vehicles were torched during weekend protests about immigration raids.Images Sunday of downtown show Waymo vehicles covered with graffiti. One photo shows protesters waving Mexican and Guatemalan flags while standing atop a Waymo vehicle, while another appears to show a protester hitting the vehicle with a skateboard. The Los Angeles Times reported that some Lime e-scooters also were tossed into the blaze.Waymo confirmed Monday that...

As police struggled with another day of unrest in downtown L.A., several Waymo autonomous taxis were set on fire, sending thick plumes of black smoke billowing high into the air. The dramatic images were captured during an afternoon of clashes between large groups who were protesting immigration raids by the Trump administration and L.A. police who were trying to maintain order. Protesters converged on the Civic Center area of downtown L.A. on Sunday morning, spilling onto the 101 Freeway around 3:30 p.m. The roadway was then closed to traffic for several hours as California Highway Patrol officers worked to push...

Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson 🚨BREAKING: Several Waymo vehicles have been torched by rioters in Los Angeles. Over half a million dollars in damages. From Brendan Gutenschwager 8:35 PM · Jun 8, 2025

In a dramatic escalation of tensions during recent protests in Los Angeles, several of Waymo’s autonomous vehicles were vandalised, with one being completely destroyed by fire. The incidents occurred over the weekend in downtown LA amidst demonstrations against federal immigration raids. The driverless Jaguar I-PACE vehicles, which have become an increasingly common sight on the streets of Los Angeles, found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Footage circulating on social media shows the stark image of a Waymo car engulfed in flames, sending a thick plume of black smoke into the sky. Other vehicles from the fleet...

There’s a battle brewing in Santa Monica with a fleet of unmanned, electric Waymo vehicles on one side, and exhausted, weary locals on the other. City officials, a judge and even police have been forced to intercede after residents who say the self-driving cars are a nuisance have banded together against the local 56-vehicle fleet. They’ve reached out to the city. They’ve called Waymo. Now, some are trying unconventional tactics. Using cones, cars and sometimes themselves, residents have taken to blocking the Waymos from entering their company-funded parking lot, so much so that the company has called the cops on...

(SAN FRANCISCO) – Teamsters are calling on the San Francisco Ethics Commission to investigate Waymo, the autonomous vehicle (AV) subsidiary of Google, after several of the company’s employees illegally failed to register as lobbyists for meetings with San Francisco International Airport (SFO) officials. Waymo was pressuring the officials for access so their driverless cars could “map” the airport. “These companies know that their products are unpopular, unsafe, and bad for working families, so they’re trying to steamroll policymakers and the public by putting AVs on the road before anyone has a chance to find out just how dangerous they are,”...