There’s nothing worse than having your eardrums blasted by traffic noise when you’re trying to sleep. Recently, it seems that some San Francisco residents are suffering this fate thanks to Waymo. Alphabet’s robotaxi company has been irking some locals because its self-driving cars have a habit of honking at each other late at night, sometimes for up to an hour.
The issue first came to attention earlier this week, thanks to Sophia Tung, a YouTuber who lives next door to a parking lot where Waymo vehicles spend the night. Dong has been posting videos (and even live broadcasts) of events at the lot. According to her, cars come and go at all hours, as late as 4 a.m. “Honestly, it’s fun watching cars come and go,” Tung told The Verge. She added, “It’s really just honking that needs to be addressed.”
When reached for comment by Gizmodo, a Waymo spokesperson clarified that the sirens were the result of a recent update: “We recently rolled out a helpful feature that will alert other cars if they’re backing up too close. Honking the horn to help avoid low-speed collisions “It works well in the city, but we didn’t expect this to happen so frequently in our own parking lots. We’ve updated the software so our electric vehicles The noise should be reduced so our neighbors can move on.
Waymo has been working hard to establish itself as a dominant player in the emerging robotaxi market. In addition to San Francisco, the company currently has offices in Los Angeles and Phoenix, Arizona, with plans to expand to other cities and regions. This week, the company announced it will begin testing its vehicles on Bay Area highways, a process that began in Phoenix earlier this year.
