Waymo Self-Driving Taxis Get Software Update, Silences Honking

Waymo’s rollout in California is continuing steadily – but it’s not been without the occasional gremlin.

The company has come under fire in San Francisco for causing traffic congestion and blocking first responders, with the hostility peaking in a physical attack on one of its self-driving taxis earlier this year.  

Now, in the same week that the company made another significant step forward by launching driverless rides on San Francisco’s freeways, bizarre nighttime footage has flooded social media of an unexpected new issue – Waymo autonomous vehicles (AVs) in a parking lot honking at each other.

Videos show dozens of the AVs either sitting stationary or moving slowly in the lot, accompanied by an unappealing soundtrack of regular blasts of the horn.

And the commotion has not gone down particularly well with local residents, who understandably would prefer to spend the hours after dark sleeping, rather than being kept awake by autonomous Jaguar SUVs apparently “communicating” with each other.

Waymo has been using the lot to house cabs not on shift since the end of July and initially residents became aware of the occasional sounds that are typical of many cars as the AVs parked up. This minor annoyance turned into a more significant one, though, when the honking of the horns started.

Related:Waymo Starts Driverless Rides on San Francisco Freeways

However, fears that the robotaxis really do have a mind of their own and were plotting a takeover were dampened when the rather more mundane reality of the problem was revealed – the commotion was down to an error with the security software.

The company explained in a statement: “We recently introduced a useful feature to help avoid low-speed collisions by honking if other cars get too close while reversing toward us.

“It has been working great in the city, but we didn’t quite anticipate it would happen so often in our own parking lots.”

The situation has been addressed courtesy of a software update, with Waymo adding that its “electric vehicles should keep the noise down for our neighbors moving forward.”

With calm restored, Waymo can now focus on accelerating the expansion that has seen it deliver more than two million paid autonomous rides to date, with that figure growing at a rate of more than 50,000 a week.

Waymo recently extended its coverage areas in San Francisco and Los Angeles, plus has also just confirmed plans for winter testing in Truckee, California, as well as upstate New York and Michigan.