The co-CEO of self-driving taxi company Waymo said she believes that a theoretical incident in which someone is killed by one of their vehicles will not pose an existential threat to the company’s continued operation.
Tekedra Mawakana, the company’s co-CEO, was interviewed in San Francisco this week during the TechCrunch Disrupt conference, and was asked about the potential for fatal autonomous taxi accidents.
According to SFGate, during the interview, TechCrunch’s transportation editor, Kristen Korosec, posed the following scenario to Mawakna: what would happen if self-driving taxis brought down the overall rate of traffic fatalities, but a Waymo car was directly involved in a fatal accident?
“Will society accept that? Will society accept a death potentially caused by a robot?” Korosec asked, according to the outlet.
“I think that society will,” Mawakana said, noting that such a question could affect any autonomous car company, not just Waymo. “I think the challenge for us is making sure that society has a high enough bar on safety that companies are held to,” she added.
She noted that Waymo logs any crashes involving its vehicles in a publicly-accessible “hub” to maintain transparency and provide data about its safety record, and she encouraged other companies do the same as industry standard.
Mawakana said that self-driving cars would dramatically reduce the number of car crashes, but she said that there will always be the chance that an accident will happen, SFGATE reports.
“We have to be in this open and honest dialogue about the fact that we know it’s not perfection,” she said.
According to the co-CEO, when discussions of potential fatal crashes are discussed at the company “we don’t say ‘whether.’ We say ‘when.’ And we plan for them.”
Korosec asked Mawakana if Waymo had ever had to “pump the breaks” on its expansion in order to address safety issues.
Mawakana said the company slows down and resets “all the time,” noting that they stopped to address an issue where Waymos were blocking emergency vehicles.
The company has faced other issues recently.
Last week, a federal investigation into Waymo was announced after reports claimed self-driving taxis weren’t stopping for school buses, while in 2024 residents in San Francisco were frustrated by cars that wouldn’t stop honking at each other, even in the middle of the night.
In September, police pulled over a car for an illegal U-turn, only to realize it was a self-driving Weymo.
One of Weymo’s main competitors, Tesla, has also had its fare share of issues.
In April, a New York man sued the EV company, claiming his car ploughed into a tree after the auto-pilot feature was activated. In 2024, a vehicle in “full self driving” mode failed to detect a moving train.
A series of mishaps with Tesla’s Robotaxis were also reported soon after they were launched.
Near the end of the chat, the co-CEO challenged other autonomous car companies to meet Waymo’s standards when it comes to transparency on safety issues.
“If you are not being transparent, then it is my view that you are not doing what is necessary in order to actually earn the right to make the roads safer,” she said.
The Independent has requested comment from Waymo and Tesla.
