Anyone who has ever asked a stranger in a coffee shop to watch their laptop knows unattended tech makes an enticing target for thieves. Waymo got yet another reminder of this fact this week after a man in downtown LA attempted to take over one of its driverless cars.
The incident happened in the early morning hours of January 2. Police arrived on scene to find a man sitting in the driver’s seat of on of Waymo’s Jaguar I-Pace SUVs, CBS Los Angeles reports:
A man, who authorities say was possibly under the influence, was in the driver’s seat of one of Waymo’s fully electric Jaguar I-PACEs when officers arrived to the scene near South Hill Street and Fifth Street around 12:30 a.m., according to the Los Angeles Police Department. Footage shows officers pulling him out of the driver’s seat, where no one is usually sitting in the self-driving cars.
The unidentified man was arrested and taken into custody after authorities pulled him out of the vehicle. Waymo recently launched its driverless car service in Los Angeles in November 2024. In the two months the service has been online, the company told CBS that there have “only been a handful of instances” out of 5 million or so rides where someone attempted to steal one of its vehicles. As this recent thief likely learned, even if you do manage to make it into the front seat of a Waymo, you’re not going to get very far. In a statement to CBS, the company explained how it’s impossible for unauthorized drivers to do anything with one of the vehicles.
Waymo vehicles are designed so that unauthorized individuals cannot disengage the automated driving system and manually operate the vehicles,” Waymo said in the statement. “When any unauthorized individual sits in the driver’s seat, Waymo’s Rider Support team can ask them to leave the vehicle and end the ride. If they don’t comply with commands to leave the vehicle, Rider Support coordinates with our Emergency Response Team, which works with law enforcement to respond.
The company said the system that operates its vehicles is called the “Waymo driver” and consists of its AI self-driving tech, the variety of sensors and cameras on the vehicle and its software. Waymo says this tech is also capable of determining when a rider may be drunk or if “a person inside is smoking or not wearing their seatbelt.”
The LAPD says in March 2024, a man attempted to steal another Waymo driverless car in downtown Los Angeles. Police say the man attempted to put the car into drive but couldn’t figure out how to work the controls. A Waymo rep used the in-car communication system to try and get the man to leave. When he didn’t, that’s when police were contacted and he was arrested.
While Waymo’s main competitor, GM backed Cruise was recently shut down, it doesn’t seem as if Cruise had many problems with theft. Aside from embarrassing glitches, it seems that human drivers would often hit the driverless cars and then flee the scene when no one was spotted behind the wheel.
