Waymo Robotaxi's Late-Night Honking Nightmare Sparks Outrage Among San Fran Residents

Residents in downtown San Francisco have been furious about Waymo robot taxis honking at each other in the middle of the night. 

Residents spoke with NBC Bay Area about the honking chaos coming from Waymo cars in a parking lot near their apartment building in the South of Market neighborhood near 2nd Street.

The residents said peak honking occurred at 0400 local time.

A video uploaded on X by ABC7 News shows what residents have been dealing with for weeks... 

On Tuesday, residents were given relief from the overnight honking. Waymo spokesperson told NBC Bay Area that the company had implemented a fix:

"We've updated the software, so our electric vehicles should keep the noise down for our neighbors moving forward."

The spokesperson said the honking feature on the robotaxis first launched in January "to help avoid low speed collisions by honking if other cars get too close while reversing toward us."

"It has been working great in the city, but we didn't quite anticipate it would happen so often in our own parking lots," the spokesperson continued.

Waymo's Chief Product Officer recently shared a real-life situation of the honking feature in use.  

One X user said, "This is an easy fix compared to lot of other things SF residents are dealing with for several years." 

Others said...

It's really a dystopian cyberpunk future hell for San Fran residents.