Viral Video Of Driverless Taxi Is From US, Not Chennai As Claimed

Claim
World’s first driverless taxi service begins in Chennai.

Fact
Viral video shows a self-driving taxi in the US.

Several social media users are circulating a video, claiming that it shows a senior citizen speaking in Tamil, using the world’s first “driverless taxi service” in Chennai, India. We received this claim on our Whatsapp tipline (9999499044), too, requesting us to fact-check it.

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Fact Check

Newschecker first ran a keyword search for “driverless taxi service Chennai”, which did not throw up any credible news reports of such a service.

We then noticed the following things in the viral video:

• “Waymo” written on the car, indicating the company’s name.

• The elderly woman enters the car from the kerb on the right side of the road, while in India, traffic is on the left.

• Steering wheel is on the left side, while in India it is on the right.

We learnt that Waymo — formerly the Google self-driving car project — is an American autonomous driving technology company, headquartered in California. Taking a cue from this, we ran a keyword search for “Waymo driverless taxi service”, which led us to the viral video, uploaded on Youtube on September 8, 2023, with the title stating that it shows a driverless taxi in the US.

We then got in touch with Waymo, where Christopher Bonelli, product communications manager, said, “This video appears to be from Phoenix, Arizona. I can confirm our vehicles only operate in Phoenix; San Francisco, California; Los Angeles, California; and Austin, Texas,” clearly confirming that the service is not in Chennai.

“Waymo has been testing in Phoenix since 2016, and began offering a fully autonomous public ride-hail service there in 2020,” read a TechCrunch article, dated May 19, 2022. A similar article on the company’s pilot programme in Phoenix can be seen here.

We also learnt that customers ordering an Uber in Phoenix had recently got the option to take their ride in a fully autonomous vehicle. According to a CNBC report, Uber partnered with the autonomous car company Waymo in May. “Phoenix is the first city where Uber has publicly rolled out access to Waymo’s cars, in part because it is ‘the largest fully autonomous service area in the world,’ read the report, dated October 26, 2023.

“Uber customers can get matched with a fully autonomous, all-electric Waymo ride — with no human driver behind the wheel—in the 225+ square miles of Metro Phoenix where Waymo currently operates… Riders will still be able to hail the Waymo Driver directly through the Waymo One app, available to the public in Metro Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and soon, Austin,” read a press release from Waymo, dated October 26, 2023.

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Conclusion

Video of a driverless taxi operating in the US falsely claimed to be from Chennai.

Result: False

Sources
Email from Christopher Bonelli, product communications manager, Waymo
Youtube video, Ask Information, September, 2023

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