It’s almost an early Christmas story: last Monday, an American woman gave birth to her child in a Waymo autonomous vehicle while en route to UC San Francisco Medical Center. “A woman in labor gave birth in the back seat of a Waymo robotaxi, the company confirmed in a blog post on Wednesday. Mother and child are doing well.
Waymo vehicles are monitored by both onboard sensors and remote support teams, which played a role here. While the mother was on her way to the hospital in a self-driving Waymo robotaxi, the company’s remote monitoring team detected “unusual activity” in the backseat of the driverless vehicle.
The team called to check on the passenger and contacted 911 as soon as they realised what was happening. The rider, baby, and vehicle arrived safely at the hospital without needing assistance.
‘Uplifting moment’
Waymo positioned the story as an uplifting moment, saying to be proud of life’s big and small moments. “We’re proud to be a trusted ride for moments big and small, serving riders from just seconds old to many years young,” Waymo said in a statement to The L.A.Times. “We wish the new family all the best, and we look forward to safely getting them where they’re going through many of life’s events.”
Apparently, it was not the first birth in one of Waymo’s autonomous cars, and with the company expanding rapidly, it may not be the last. The company confirmed to The San Francisco Standard that a similar incident previously occurred in Phoenix. “Some people just can’t wait for their first Waymo ride,” the company joked.
Significant expansion
Waymo — a subsidiary of Google parent Alphabet Inc. — began operating its autonomous ride-hailing service to select riders as a research program on San Francisco’s hilly streets in 2021, and opened service to all in 2024.
On Wednesday, Waymo said it had served over 14 million trips so far this year, and expects to hit 1 million rides a week by the end of 2025. Waymo is planning a significant expansion next year as it faces competition from Tesla’s nascent robotaxi service, which launched in Austin in June. The robotaxi company plans to open its driverless ride-hailing service to the public in several other cities in 2026, including Miami and Washington DC.
Less successful stories…
In the above stories about autonomous driving cars, everything ended well, but there have also been less successful stories with self-driving vehicles. For example, in 2018, there was the first fatal accident involving a self-driving Uber autonomous test vehicle, which struck and killed a pedestrian (Elaine Herzberg) in Tempe, Arizona.
There are also stories of Waymo cars driving in circles in a parking lot and requiring remote intervention. Other Waymo vehicles got stuck in a drive-thru or navigated the wrong way and needed assistance. Other autonomous car incidents range from serious (pedestrian deaths and collisions) to operational oddities and edge-case behavior.
