If you’ve ever wondered what happens to all those self-driving taxis when the world is asleep, one YouTube channel has you covered. Since the beginning of the month, software engineer Sophia Tung has been livestreaming a San Francisco parking lot that Waymo is renting to give its robotaxis somewhere to go during their downtime.
Tung told The Verge via email that the company appeared to “partially” take over the lot on July 28th then later took over the entire lot. Waymo recently opened up its robotaxi service to anyone in San Francisco.
Days later, she set up the livestream, complete with LoFi study beats. Tung told us she’s running it off of a mini PC she had laying around, with a webcam surrounded by a cereal box to reduce glare. Now, any time of day, you can pop in to check out what the Waymo cars are up to. If there aren’t any Waymos in the lot, “the flock will start migrating back” between 7PM and 9PM PST on Sunday through Thursday or 11PM through midnight, Friday and Saturday, says text overlaid on the video.
As I write this, the lot is calm, with just three cars parked in it. But when the lot starts to fill up (which “usually happens at 4AM or so,” according to Tung) what looks like a maddening ballet of autonomous parking — and honking — begins. The noise goes for as much as an hour at a time before it settles down, she said.
Waymo is “aware that in some scenarios our vehicles may briefly honk while navigating our parking lots,” company representative Chris Bonelli told The Verge in an email, adding that Waymo has figured out what’s causing the behavior and is working to fix it.
Tung, who is a self-described micromobility advocate, told The Verge she thinks “generally people are bemused,” and that she likes having the cars there. “Honestly, it’s fun to watch the cars come and go,” she said, adding that “it’s really just the honking that needs to be resolved.”