A Waymo autonomous vehicle that was being driven manually was involved in a three-car crash this week, according to the Austin Police Department.
The Waymo vehicle was not in service and had no riders.
The collision occurred at 8:34 a.m. Monday in the 5700 block of Airport Boulevard.
Police said a southbound vehicle on Airport Boulevard tried to turn left onto Koenig Lane against a red light, striking another car and a Waymo vehicle that were both going through the intersection on a green light. Air bags deployed in all three vehicles and all occupants exited safely with no serious injuries. One passenger reported minor pain, police said.
No arrests were made and no charges were filed.
Waymo confirmed Wednesday to the Austin American-Statesman that the vehicle’s autonomous driving system was not engaged and it was being driven manually at the time of the collision. The company said it is standard practice for operators to manually drive vehicles to collect data, move them between depots and perform maintenance.
The company launched its autonomous ride-hailing service in partnership with Uber in March. By June, Waymo vehicles had logged 3.225 million driverless miles in Austin. Since then, the company has reported few serious incidents.
Earlier this year, a Waymo vehicle was reportedly involved in a crash while it was parked. In a separate incident, a rider posted online that in May, a Waymo vehicle lost a wheel while traveling on South Lamar Boulevard. The rider reported suffering a minor injury.
According to the city of Austin’s AV incident tracker, 11 alleged crashes involving autonomous vehicles have been reported since August 2023. Of those, five involved Waymo vehicles. Three of the Waymo incidents occurred near the University of Texas at Austin campus, with two reportedly taking place in September and October of this year.
The AV incident tracker records incidents reported directly to the city but does not confirm or validate the reports.
Alphabet’s Waymo is the leader in the autonomous ride-hailing industry and the first U.S. company to scale its operations across multiple metro areas without requiring safety moderators and with relatively few serious incidents.
According to Waymo, its vehicles are involved in 91% fewer crashes resulting in serious injuries or worse than vehicles with human drivers and experience 79% fewer incidents that trigger airbag deployment. However, the company has not updated its safety website since June and does not provide Austin-specific crash data.
Austin has become something of a launching pad for autonomous vehicle operations.
Tesla Inc. introduced ride-hailing services in the city in June and made them publicly accessible in September, although a long waitlist for would-be riders remains and the cars come with a human minder in the front seat. Amazon’s Zoox robotaxis are testing in downtown and southeast Austin. Locally based Avride and Volkswagen’s ADMT are also conducting tests in the area.
Waymo, which operates in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, Atlanta, and Austin, is gearing up to expand to Dallas next year and is currently testing in San Antonio.