A New Way to Monkey Wrench Waymo

Have you even shut a seat belt in the door or not closed the door firmly enough and gotten a door warning?

It turns out that Waymo semi-autonomous taxis has no way to shut its own doors, so the cab company is paying people $20 to rescue cars with doors that are ajar.

This is another way to protest the beta test of a 4,000 pound death machine on public streets.

Don Adkins was walking along the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles late one night this month when he heard a plea for help.

“Please close the right-side rear door, thanks,” Adkins recalled a synthetic voice calling out. It came from a Jaguar SUV stopped in the street with its lights flashing. One of the hundreds of Waymo robotaxis in Los Angeles operated by Alphabet was in trouble.

………

Adkins had witnessed an Achilles’ heel of the Waymo robotaxis that ferry thousands of riders in Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities each week. The vehicles can navigate city streets and compete with taxi drivers without anyone behind the wheel — but become stranded if a human doesn’t close the door behind them at the end of a ride. 

Because riders and passersby can be unreliable, Waymo pays workers in Los Angeles $20 or more for rescuing a robotaxi by closing a door, summoning help through an app called Honk that is like an Uber for towing companies.