Nighttime disturbance: Robotaxi company Waymo stops parking lot honking

Disturbance of the peace at night
Robotaxi company Waymo stops parking lot honking

Waymo's robotaxis reacted by honking when another car came too close to them. But in a parking lot, the s

Waymo’s robotaxis reacted by honking when another car came too close to them. But in a parking lot, the self-driving cars honked at each other. (Archive image) Photo

© Andrej Sokolow/dpa

When Waymo robotaxis took over a new parking lot in San Francisco, residents were suddenly plagued by a concert of honking. An actually helpful function had unexpected side effects.

Robotaxis from Waymo disturbed residents next to a parking lot in San Francisco with nightly honking – now the Google sister company is remedying the situation with a software update.

The trigger was a new function that causes the self-driving cars to honk when someone reverses towards them at a slow speed. This worked excellently in the city, but Waymo did not expect the situation to occur frequently in its own parking lot, a spokesperson told the technology blog “The Verge”. The software update will restore calm.

In recent days, a local resident had set up a live stream from the parking lot rented by Waymo and added music to the honking noises. She reported that some of the cars had returned to the parking lot from nighttime operations as of 4 a.m. Her videos show the driverless robot taxis reversing in the parking lot while cornering and getting closer to the cars behind them, which honk at them.

Waymo offers rides in robotaxis without a human at the wheel in several US cities; in San Francisco, the service is already available without a waiting list.

In recent years, some city authorities and transport companies have complained that the vehicles sometimes block the streets, but generally the vehicles travel without problems.

dpa

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