A self-driving Jaguar from the ride-hailing service Waymo went crazy in the United States in early December 2024. The car, which locked the passenger inside, continued to drive in circles.
A tech guy from Los Angeles, Mike Johns, nearly missed his flight when he got caught in a self-driving Jaguar that was far from functioning properly.
The car, belonging to the driving service Waymo, circled around instead of taking him to the airport.
Johns described the incident on LinkedIn , saying he got into the car, buckled his seatbelt, and then the self-driving car began driving in circles. The car circled for about five minutes before he contacted Waymo for help.
"I've got my seatbelt on. I can't get out of the car. Has it been hacked? What's going on?" Johns can be heard saying in a video recording.
While Johns was recording himself, a Waymo employee began speaking through the car's speakers. The employee confirmed that Johns' car was circling in a parking lot. The company then attempted to take control of the car manually. Eventually, it was able to bring the car to a stop.
Waymo, which has only self-driving electric cars in its fleet, is a subsidiary of Google's parent company, Alphabet. Why the car decided to drive in a circle is not yet clear.
The problem was resolved after a few minutes, Waymo said in a subsequent statement to the press. Johns eventually made it to his flight from Arizona to Southern California, which he attributed to a delay on the part of the airline.
This isn't the first time a Waymo self-driving car has been caught in a loop. In December 2023, an empty Waymo was found driving around a roundabout over and over again, stopping after 34 attempts.
Other times, sleeping people have been woken up by self-driving cars from the company because the horns in the cars have gone crazy. See and, not least, hear it in the article here .
