Waymo’s autonomous vehicles have been causing a stir in a San Francisco neighborhood, not for their self-driving capabilities, but for their incessant honking. Residents reported being disturbed, particularly at night, by the noisy robocars in a local parking lot. The issue arose when Waymo cars would reverse into parking spaces, triggering nearby parked autonomous vehicles to begin honking.
This peculiar problem gained attention last week when local resident Christopher Cherry reported the escalating noise to NBC Bay Area News. He described how the honking started with a few sporadic blasts and intensified as more Waymo cars arrived in the lot. Waymo initially responded by claiming a software fix had been implemented. However, the honking persisted, much to the frustration of residents.
One resident, Sophia Tung, took matters into her own hands by setting up a live stream to document the ongoing cacophony. The live stream captured the Waymo cars continuing their noisy behavior, providing concrete evidence of the unresolved issue. Tung even secured a live-streamed interview with Vishay Nihalani, Waymo’s director of product and operations, to discuss the problem.
During the interview, Nihalani acknowledged the importance of car horns for alerting drivers and pedestrians on public roads. However, he conceded that there was no logical reason for autonomous vehicles to honk at each other within a parking lot. While the initial software patch failed to resolve the issue, Nihalani stated that a second patch had been released and was expected to finally silence the troublesome robocars.
Waymo has been conducting autonomous vehicle tests in San Francisco for several years. Currently, the company is utilizing these vehicles for a paid ridesharing service trial for city residents.
