A Jaguar I-Pace equipped with autonomous technology from Waymo struck and killed a small dog in San Francisco on May 21, documents filed with the California DMV show. The vehicle was driving in autonomous mode when the accident occurred.
Waymo, which is owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, said that although the vehicle saw the dog running towards it, it was “not able to avoid contact.” It cites the “unusual path” of the animal and the speed at which it ran towards the vehicle, as reasons why.
“The investigation is ongoing, however the initial review confirmed that the system correctly identified the dog which ran out from behind a parked vehicle but was not able to avoid contact,” Waymo said in a statement to Tech Crunch. “We send our sincere condolences to the dog’s owner.”
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Waymo says that its autonomous system saw the dog despite the human operator missing it, likely because of the angle at which the dog approached it. However, neither the human operator nor the vehicle’s autonomous systems applied the brakes.
As part of its investigation, Waymo reconstructed the accident in simulations to see if a non-impaired driver with their eyes always on the dog could have stopped in time, and found that they could not. It says that means that the collision was unavoidable in this circumstance.
Regardless, Waymo could still suffer backlash for this incident. The company recently expanded its area of operation in Phoenix, Arizona, and teamed up with Uber to give the public autonomous taxi rides.
It is also gearing up to do the same in San Francisco. A blow to its public image could put riders’ willingness to get in its autonomous vehicles at risk, which is something that Waymo recognizes.
“The trust and safety of the communities we are in is the most important thing to us, and we’re continuing to look into this on our end,” it said in a statement.
