Roundabouts. They trapped Clark Griswold in “National Lampoon’s European Vacation” and now they’ve tripped up a Waymo robotaxi.
A video is circulating on social media showing a Waymo robotaxi going round and round on a roundabout — as if it is stuck in a loop. A Waymo spokesperson told TechCrunch there were no passengers onboard the vehicle in the video and said the company has already addressed the issue by deploying a software update to its fleet.
TechCrunch has asked Waymo for more information regarding the underlying logic that led to this strange behavior and how engineers ended up correcting for such a unique scenario.
Videos capturing odd robotaxi behavior have become more prevalent in the past year, particularly in San Francisco — a hub of autonomous vehicle activity. For instance, earlier this year, one woman set up a livestream that showed Waymo vehicles honking all night in a parking lot near her San Francisco apartment.
Rebecca Bellan
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