Perhaps you’ve noticed them as you’re going about your day in San Francisco—the strangely futuristic, mildly dystopian sight of driverless vehicles entering and exiting parking lots where their fellow robocars roost.
These Waymo resting areas—there are approximately a dozen in the city—are oddly quiet. Like a preschool at naptime with unpeopled cars instead of sleeping children, the whir of the vehicles’ machinery sounds like heavy breathing. The only visible employees, privately contracted security guards, seem to take care not to disturb the cranky tots.
The Blade Runner vibes come on strong when the lidar dome displays—the system that allows autonomous vehicles to “see”—light up, a field of colors that indicate what type of maintenance is needed.
“Our cars can automatically route to the nearest charger when they’re low on battery and return to our main operations center when they need maintenance,” Waymo spokesperson Julia Ilina said.
Many of the Waymo resting and recharging facilities have a range of automotive specialty equipment to keep the driverless cars on the road, Ilina said.
Sometimes the cars need charging—if so, they’ll automatically route themselves, like an obedient child, to a spot with a charger. The vehicles may also need special maintenance or cleaning.
“We regularly clean our cars and do pre- and post-ride inspections via the interior cameras to determine if any ad hoc cleanings are needed,” Ilina said.
An employee at the Toland Street lot in the Bayview—the largest Waymo facility in the city—said it’s usually just the run-of-the-mill objects they find forgotten in the cars: keys, wallets, cellphones.
In the meantime, cars whir in and out of the lot on 14th Street in the Mission at a steady clip, the cars nearly a continuous stream on a recent Monday morning.