Inglewood man’s Waymo goes in circles – NBC Los Angeles

An Inglewood man’s visit to Arizona for a conference took one turn after another.

Mike Johns recorded video from the back of his Waymo car Dec. 9 when he said the driverless car kept going around in circles in a Scottsdale, Arizona parking lot when he was trying to get to the airport for his flight home to Southern California.

“Why is this happening to me on a Monday? I’m in a Waymo car, and this car is just going in circles,” Johns can be heard in the backseat on the video as the car continually turns right.

Johns, an AI consultant and the founder and CEO of Digital Mind State, said the car made about eight circles. He eventually made the trip to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on time for his flight.

“After I made an adjustment through the app, that’s when the car kicked into high gear,” Johns told NBCLA Monday. “At their control towers, they took over and made it work, and it drove off to Sky Harbor.”

Waymo said the looping event has since been addressed by a regularly scheduled software updates. The rider, who was not charged, was delayed for about five minutes before the car drove to the destination, according to Waymo, which said it has attempted to contact the customer.

California-based Waymo began offering rides in its autonomous driving technology cars in Los Angeles in April. The Google spinoff uses a smartphone app that allows users to request rides with remote assistance from employees, if necessary.

Waymo is the industry’s major player in the United States, but competitors are on the horizon, including Elon Musk’s automaker Tesla and Amazon-owned Zoox.