Waymo explains how its driverless taxis handle car thefts after incident in downtown LA
Waymo, the ride-hailing app that offers driverless robotaxis, explained what happens when someone tries to steal one of the fully autonomous, electric Jaguars — following an incident in downtown Los Angeles Thursday.
A man, who authorities say was possibly under the influence, was in the driver's seat of one of Waymo's fully electric Jaguar I-PACEs when officers arrived to the scene near South Hill Street and Fifth Street around 12:30 a.m., according to the Los Angeles Police Department. Footage shows officers pulling him out of the driver's seat, where no one is usually sitting in the self-driving cars.
Waymo officially launched in Los Angeles in November, becoming available to anyone in some parts of the greater LA metro area, including Santa Monica, Hollywood and areas of South LA surrounding the University of Southern California campus. Before then, the app was only available to a limited number of riders on a waiting list.
Like apps such as Uber and Lyft, rides are offered seven days a week, 24 hours a day through the app — just with no one behind the wheel. The service is currently available in LA, San Francisco, Phoenix and some surrounding areas of the Arizona city.
Of Waymo's more than 5 million rides, there have been "only been a handful of instances" in which a rider or someone else not authorized to operate the car has tried to drive off, the company said in a statement Thursday to CBS News Los Angeles.
"Waymo vehicles are designed so that unauthorized individuals cannot disengage the automated driving system and manually operate the vehicles," Waymo said in the statement. "When any unauthorized individual sits in the driver's seat, Waymo's Rider Support team can ask them to leave the vehicle and end the ride. If they don't comply with commands to leave the vehicle, Rider Support coordinates with our Emergency Response Team, which works with law enforcement to respond."
Riders are not allowed to drive the cars, which are fully autonomous, and Waymo employees are in the driver's seat on just a few occasions. The company said these individuals are specialists reviewing the performance of the vehicles and the technology.
"Our vehicles are primarily driving autonomously, but you'll sometimes notice that our cars have autonomous specialists riding in the driver's seat," the company website states. "These specialists are there to monitor our autonomous driving technology and share important feedback to help us improve the Waymo One experience."
Waymo is fully available on surfaces streets and working towards offering rides on freeways, with additional testing underway to get there, according to the company.
The electric robotaxis are run by a system the company calls "the Waymo driver," which features hardware and software for the self-driving capabilities. This includes sensors, cameras, radars and an AI platform on the hardware end as well as the collection of information from sensors on the software side, according to the company website.
"Together, our hardware and software work in concert to paint a complete picture of the world around the car and enable us to navigate roads safely," the website states.
Cameras within the vehicles are used to determine when a rider may be incapacitated from being under the influence of alcohol, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, which reported this week on how Waymo handles such situations.
The cars' cameras, which use a machine-learning model based on real-time cases, can also spot whether a person inside is smoking or not wearing their seatbelt, the Chronicle reported.
Earlier this year, when Waymo was only available to LA riders on a select waiting list, a man was arrested on suspicion of trying to steal one of the driverless vehicles in downtown LA. He had tried putting the car in drive but couldn't manipulate the controls to successfully drive off, according to LAPD.
