Waymo CEO John Krafcik has announced he is stepping down after five and a half years at the helm of Google's self-driving car development company, as criticism mounts of the company that has caused widespread discontent among Arizona residents.
Waymo's self-driving car caused an accident last October when it unexpectedly stopped in the middle of the road, due to a technical failure that the Google-linked company claims is rare.
In another accident in 2020, a police officer claimed that the sudden stop of the Waymo caused the collision. The incidents are detailed in newly released police reports obtained by the Phoenix New Times, shedding new light on the function and operations of autonomous vehicles, which are often classified.
The reports from Arizona under the Public Records Act detail all cases related to Waymo since January 2020.
The company earlier this month bragged about how well its self-driving cars are performing, yet the company hasn't been fully transparent with metro Phoenix residents, refusing to hand over data showing how often the autonomous vehicle function failed while driving around the Chandler and Tempe boroughs. and other Valley regions.
The latest police reports help explain why the company is struggling to deploy an entire driverless fleet. Although their vehicles can operate in driverless mode, almost all of them still have spare drivers behind the wheel when they are on the road.
Sudden stops have been observed in the company's cars for years, and rear-end collisions were usually seen as the fault of the driver who did not stop in time, while the problem in this case is that the self-driving car stopped suddenly in the middle of the road without any reason.
In the October 8 incident, a white Waymo car was heading west in the middle of 3 lanes in self-driving mode, when it stopped unexpectedly for no reason.
A reserve driver in Waymo behind the wheel at the time told Chandler Police that "the car came to a sudden stop without warning."
A red Chevrolet Silverado pickup behind the car swerved to the right but snapped the rear panel, causing minor damage. No one was hurt.
The officer who wrote the collision report ticked the boxes that said Waymo's car "stooped in the way of traffic", but also wrote that the other car was traveling "too fast".
How safe is it?
While Waymo's achievements in autonomous vehicle technology have been lauded around the world, autonomous vehicles remain a rarity on the roads, even in Chandler, where Waymo's local operations are based.
The company has tested vehicles in the metro Phoenix area since 2016. Uber, another company that prominently tests vehicles in Arizona, left the state after one of its vehicles collided and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, and the reserve driver, Rafaela Vasquez, was charged with negligent homicide.
Egg throwing threat
Chandler District reports also detail vandalism or implied threats to vehicles and their backup drivers, a phenomenon first reported in late 2018.
The driver was arrested for driving with a revoked license, a person threw ice cream into the open window of a Waymo car, and a man in a black car threw eggs at several Waymo cars.
After Waymo's car turned left in front of two motorbikes, the motorcyclists shouted at the vehicle's reserve driver, who managed to escape.
Waymo has not provided any police with video, although the vehicles are equipped with several external cameras, and no further investigation has been conducted.