{"id":301150,"date":"2026-05-05T18:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T18:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/301150\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T18:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T18:12:10","slug":"waymos-robotaxi-made-it-to-san-jose-his-luggage-made-it-to-san-francisco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/301150\/","title":{"rendered":"Waymo\u2019s Robotaxi Made It To San Jose, His Luggage Made It To San Francisco"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"lead\">\n                            People using Waymo&#8217;s robotaxi fleet can open the vehicle&#8217;s trunk through the Waymo app, or use the physical release button                        <\/p>\n<p>                                        https:\/\/www.carscoops.com\/author\/bradcarscoops-com\/<br \/>\n                                    <img loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/979dca4e985cdb4877326c7fec753810da5370a4210c624858bdf777bdc5877b.png\"  class=\"avatar avatar-32 photo\" height=\"32\" width=\"32\" decoding=\"async\"\/>                                                                <\/p>\n<p>                                    by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.carscoops.com\/author\/bradcarscoops-com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brad Anderson<\/a><\/p>\n<p>3 hours ago<\/p>\n<p>                            <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"ingallery no-lazy img-center\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/615507882_1336109908558840_2730483622337479189_n-copy-1024x576.jpg\"   alt=\" Waymo\u2019s Robotaxi Made It To San Jose, His Luggage Made It To San Francisco\" width=\"1650\" height=\"928\"\/>                        <\/p>\n<p>The tech giant initially said it wouldn\u2019t pay to ship the rider\u2019s luggage back.<\/p>\n<p>Waymo offered Di Jin two free rides to pick up his luggage from a depot.<\/p>\n<p>As it turns out, there are some advantages to using human-driven taxis.<\/p>\n<p>Taking a trip in one of Waymo\u2019s robotaxis <a href=\"https:\/\/www.carscoops.com\/2026\/01\/waymos-new-ojaj-robotaxi-crashed\/\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/www.carscoops.com\/2026\/01\/waymos-new-ojaj-robotaxi-crashed\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">should be a smooth and stress-free experience<\/a>, particularly since there\u2019s no pressure to have an awkward conversation with a driver. However, for one Waymo user in California, taking a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.carscoops.com\/tag\/robotaxi\/\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/www.carscoops.com\/tag\/robotaxi\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">robotaxi<\/a> to the airport left him without luggage for a business trip.<\/p>\n<p>In late April, Di Jin took his first ride in one of Waymo\u2019s robotaxis, traveling from Sunnyvale to San Jose Mineta Airport. The self-driving <a href=\"https:\/\/www.carscoops.com\/tag\/jaguar-i-pace\/\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/www.carscoops.com\/tag\/jaguar-i-pace\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jaguar I-Pace<\/a> took him to the airport without issues, but when Jin got out of the car and attempted to open the trunk to get his luggage, the button did nothing. Moments later, the vehicle drove off, still carrying his luggage.<\/p>\n<p>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.carscoops.com\/2026\/02\/lawmakers-hit-out-at-waymo-using-a-chinese-ev\/\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/www.carscoops.com\/2026\/02\/lawmakers-hit-out-at-waymo-using-a-chinese-ev\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Waymo\u2019s Robotaxis Sometimes Receive Guidance By Some Guy In The Philippines<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Speaking with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcbayarea.com\/news\/local\/sj-passenger-waymo-drove-off-luggage\/4078004\/\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/www.nbcbayarea.com\/news\/local\/sj-passenger-waymo-drove-off-luggage\/4078004\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NBC<\/a>, Jin said he frantically contacted Waymo customer service but was told the robotaxi couldn\u2019t be turned around and was heading to the depot. He was then forced to board his flight without any of his luggage.<\/p>\n<p>The Californian man was informed later in the day that Waymo had retrieved his luggage at the depot. The only problem is that the depot is in San Francisco, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.carscoops.com\/2026\/01\/waymo-robotaxi-child-incident-nhtsa-investigation\/\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/www.carscoops.com\/2026\/01\/waymo-robotaxi-child-incident-nhtsa-investigation\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the company<\/a> refused to pay shipping costs to get it back to Jin. If Jin didn\u2019t want to pay for shipping, Waymo offered him two free rides to and from the depot to pick up his luggage.<\/p>\n<p>Waymo Finally Steps Up<\/p>\n<p>However, time is money, and Jin didn\u2019t like the idea of wasting two hours getting his luggage. Waymo ultimately relented, confirming that it would pay to deliver his luggage after all.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.carscoops.com\/tag\/waymo\/\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/www.carscoops.com\/tag\/waymo\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Waymo<\/a> notes that riders can open the trunk of one of its vehicles by pressing the physical trunk release button on the outside of the vehicle, or by tapping the \u2018open trunk\u2019 button in the Waymo app. For this rider, the trunk release apparently didn\u2019t work, and with no human driver behind the wheel, he had no way of immediately notifying the car that he couldn\u2019t retrieve his luggage. Perhaps human-operated taxis aren\u2019t so bad after all.<\/p>\n<p>        <a href=\"https:\/\/www.carscoops.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Waymo-Highway.jpg\" data-type=\"inarticle-image-block\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> &#13;<br \/>\n            &#13;<br \/>\n                &#13;<br \/>\n                    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy \"   alt=\" Waymo\u2019s Robotaxi Made It To San Jose, His Luggage Made It To San Francisco\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Waymo-Highway-1024x576.jpg\" data-type=\"inarticle-image\"\/>&#13;<br \/>\n                Photos Waymo&#13;<br \/>\n            &#13;<br \/>\n        <\/a>  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People using Waymo&#8217;s robotaxi fleet can open the vehicle&#8217;s trunk through the Waymo app, or use the physical&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[15755,10949,45002,22082,88,90,89,995,1264,5050,5987],"class_list":["post-301150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-electric-vehicles","tag-jaguar","tag-jaguar-i-pace","tag-robotaxi","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-tech","tag-usa","tag-video","tag-waymo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}