Self-driving taxi catches car thief in downtown Los Angeles

Robotaxi service Waymo has revealed what happens when someone tries to steal one of its fully autonomous electric Jaguars. This announcement follows a recent incident involving an attempted hijacking of a Waymo self-driving taxi in Los Angeles.

Image source: cbsnews.com

This week, Los Angeles police arrested a man under the influence of alcohol who was in the driver’s seat of one of Waymo’s electric vehicles at the time of his arrest. Local media footage shows police officers dragging the offender out of the driver’s seat, which is usually unoccupied in self-driving cars.

A few days after this incident, Waymo spoke about what typically happens when someone tries to steal a self-driving car. The company noted that out of more than 5 million trips made by the company’s taxis, there were “only a few cases” when someone not authorized to drive a car tried to steal a car.

«Waymo vehicles are designed to prevent unauthorized persons from disabling the automated driving system or manually driving the vehicles. When someone else sits in the driver’s seat, Waymo’s driver support team may ask them to leave the vehicle and stop driving. If they do not comply with commands to exit the vehicle, Driver Services coordinates with our emergency response team, which works with law enforcement,” Waymo said in a statement.

Waymo’s website also states that drivers are not allowed to drive the company’s fully autonomous vehicles. In some cases, this may be done by Waymo employees who check the performance of the autonomous driving system and other technologies. Internal cameras are used to determine who exactly is inside the car.