Waymo Robotaxi Drives Off With Luggage

A robotaxi is supposed to remove one annoying part of travel — the car ride. But this story is about what happens when the last 30 seconds go wrong. A Sunnyvale man, Di Jin, says a Waymo dropped him at San Jose Mineta International Airport on April 28, the trunk failed to open, and the car drove away with his suitcase still inside. He made his flight to San Diego without clothes, work notes, or any obvious way to get the bag back. ### What exactly happened? Jin told NBC Bay Area that his first-ever Waymo ride went smoothly until the airport curb. He got out, tried to open the trunk, and nothing happened. Before he could recover the bag, the vehicle left for Waymo’s depot. Jin says he called customer support right away, but was told the car was already heading back and could not be turned around. ### Why is the trunk the whole story? Because this does not sound like ordinary “left something in the back seat” forgetfulness. Jin’s point is that he did not forget the suitcase — he was actively trying to retrieve it. That matters. Waymo’s general lost-and-found language says the company is not responsible for a passenger's mistake. ### What did Waymo offer him? At first, not much that felt proportional. NBC’s report says Waymo emailed Jin later that day saying the luggage was safe at a local depot, but the company would not cover shipping or courier costs. Instead, it offered two complimentary Waymo rides so he could go pick the bag up, which he saw as absurd because the problem was not his fault. ### Did that change? Yes — after the story got public attention, it did. NBC Bay Area updated its report on May 3 to say that by Friday afternoon, May 2, Jin said a Waymo representative called and told him the company would pay to ship the luggage to him. Jin said he was satisfied with that resolution. So the immediate dispute seems to have ended, but only after outside pressure. ### Why does this matter beyond one suitcase? Because robotaxis remove the person who normally patches over weird edge cases. In a normal cab, the driver can pop the trunk again, wait 10 seconds, or circle back. In a driverless system, the fallback is software plus remote support. If both are rigid, the system follows the standard path, but consumers remember the exception path. ### Why is the airport angle important? San Jose Mineta only began public Waymo service in November 2025, making it the first commercial airport in California with Waymo pickups and dropoffs. Airports are the hardest version of ride-hailing because the stakes are time-sensitive and luggage is part of the trip, not an extra. A downtown glitch is annoying. An airport glitch can wreck a flight. ### So what is the real weak point? Not self-driving in the abstract. The weak point is service recovery. The car may have behaved exactly as its trip-end logic expected. But the system around the car did not seem built to distinguish “customer forgot bag” from “customer couldn’t access bag because the trunk failed.” That is a product problem, a policy problem, and a trust problem all at once. ### Bottom line? Waymo did eventually fix this one. But the episode shows how brittle convenience can feel when there is no human in the loop. If robotaxis want to own airport trips, they need a much better answer for the moment when the trunk does not open.