One of Waymo’s fully autonomous minivans got stuck at an intersection in Chandler, Arizona, prompting the company to send a roadside assistance team

Waymo, which is self-driving, became stuck in traffic and attempted to flee its support crew.

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2021-05-15 17:02:09

One of Waymo’s fully autonomous minivans got stuck at an intersection in Chandler, Arizona, prompting the company to send a roadside assistance team to come extract it. But when the crew arrived, the vehicle started to drive away before pulling over and completely blocking a three-lane road. It was a rare moment captured on video of one of Waymo’s driverless vehicles performing erratically.

The incident was recorded from inside the vehicle by Joel Johnson, who publishes videos on YouTube under the handle JJRicks Studios about his experiences using Waymo’s Level 4 autonomous vehicles, which operate without a safety driver behind the wheel. Johnson’s video is a rare unedited look at what happens when one of the world’s most proficient autonomous vehicles gets tripped up by a few orange safety cones.

“It’s no longer stranded and now it’s blocking, okay,” a remote operator is heard saying to Johnson at one point in the video, to which he replies, “Well, this is interesting!”