Waymo Vehicle Spotting Driving Over A Golf Course, But Don’t Worry, It’s Not Actually A Malfunction » TwistedSifter

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Waymo is the leader in the autonomous ride-hailing industry. It has been providing people in several major cities with driverless transportation for quite some time now, and recently surpassed one million miles of rides provided.

While the company’s safety record is incredible (a driverless ride is much safer than one with a driver), there have been some hiccups here and there. This is not at all surprising, and fortunately, most of the accidents that these vehicles get in are pretty minor.

When a video went viral showing a Waymo vehicle driving over the lawn of a golf course, however, people wondered how this could possibly happen. These cars are supposed to stay on the roads, and the area where it was traveling was clearly grass.

So, should we be concerned?

Not at all.

According to Waymo, the vehicle was being driven by a human at the time. It was being navigated on the Penmar Golf Course in Los Angeles, California as part of a series of concepts that they call “Sunset Sessions.” This is according to an email sent by Waymo to Futurism.com.

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It isn’t exactly clear what those ‘concepts’ are for, but it is likely some type of training for their AI driving systems. Perhaps they are getting ready to roll out driverless golf carts? Who knows.

In the video, however, there are golfers walking on the course, which seems odd. The golfers do not seem concerned (other than that some of them were recording the event), so perhaps they were made aware that they should expect to be sharing the greens with a car.

Regardless, it is good to know that this was a planned drive performed by a human, and not an indication that there is some type of major malfunction within the Waymo driverless vehicle system.

After all, the last thing we need is cars picking up the game of golf.

If you think that’s impressive, check out this story about a “goldmine” of lithium that was found in the U.S. that could completely change the EV battery game.