by Incident with luggage in a Waymo robotaxi
A ride in one of the Waymo robotaxis was supposed to be smooth and stress-free, especially considering the lack of need to have awkward conversations with a driver. However, for one Waymo user in California, a trip to the airport left him without his luggage during a business trip.
How it happened
At the end of April, D. Jin used a Waymo robotaxi for the first time, traveling from Sunnyvale to San Jose Mineta Airport. The self-driving Jaguar I-Pace delivered him to the airport without issue, but when Jin got out of the car and tried to open the trunk to get his luggage, the button didn’t work. In a moment, the car drove off, still carrying his suitcase.
Speaking with NBC, Jin said that in the heat of the moment he contacted Waymo support, but was told that the robotaxi couldn’t be turned around and was heading to a depot. He had to board his flight without any luggage.
The company’s reaction
Later that day, the man from California was informed that Waymo had retrieved his luggage at the depot. The only problem was that the depot was in San Francisco, and the company refused to pay for the luggage to be shipped back to Jin. If Jin didn’t want to pay for shipping, Waymo offered him two free rides to the depot and back to pick up his luggage.
Waymo finally gives in
However, time is money, and Jin didn’t like the idea of spending two hours retrieving his luggage. Eventually, Waymo relented, confirming that it would pay for the shipping of his suitcase after all.
Waymo notes that passengers can open the trunk of one of its cars by pressing the physical trunk release button on the outside of the car or by pressing the “open trunk” button in the Waymo app. For this passenger, the trunk release button apparently didn’t work, and without a human driver behind the wheel, he had no way to immediately tell the car that he couldn’t retrieve his luggage. Maybe taxis with human drivers aren’t so bad after all.
This incident shows that even the most advanced technologies can have unexpected failures that lead to serious inconveniences. While robotaxis offer convenience and autonomy, the absence of a human driver can become a critical problem in non-standard situations, such as a trunk mechanism malfunction. For business travelers who rely on precision and reliability, such incidents can have serious consequences, and as this case shows, even after support intervention, resolving the problem can take a lot of time and effort. It is a reminder that the deployment of autonomous technologies requires not only technical perfection but also well-thought-out customer support mechanisms for unforeseen circumstances.
