A California woman welcomed an unexpected passenger—her baby—during a ride in a self-driving Waymo taxi en route to the hospital.
The new mother was en route to the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center (UCSF) on Monday when her baby was born in the back seat of a driverless Waymo vehicle, a company spokesperson confirmed in a statement released on Wednesday.
According to the company, its rider support team detected unusual activity inside the vehicle and called to check on the passenger’s well-being and to alert emergency services.
Waymo did not elaborate on how its staff determined that the passenger was in distress.
The car, the mother, and her new passenger arrived safely at the hospital, according to Jess Berthold, a UCSF spokesperson.
Waymo took the vehicle out of service for cleaning after the ride, the company added.
A passenger inside a Waymo vehicle looks out of the window while leaving the San Jose Mineta International Airport, Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025, in San Jose, Calif.
AP Photo / Godofredo A. Vásquez
Despite it being a relatively rare occurrence, this is not the first time a baby has been born in a Waymo vehicle. In a blog post shared on Wednesday, Waymo made light of the recent delivery.
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“We’re proud to be a trusted ride for moments big and small, serving riders from just seconds old to many years young,” the company said.
Driverless vehicles are becoming increasingly popular in parts of the western U.S. — despite making headlines over safety concerns — where they are permitted to operate on freeways and interstates around San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, and Phoenix, and in other parts of the country, including Atlanta and Austin.
Earlier this month, a Waymo vehicle blew through a police felony stop in downtown Los Angeles, NBC News reported.
In September, one of the company’s self-driving cars made an illegal U-turn close to a police vehicle surveying for drunk drivers in San Bruno, Calif. The vehicle was pulled over, but officers were unable to ticket the driverless car.
In late October, a Waymo vehicle killed a beloved San Francisco bodega cat named Kit-Kat, sparking outrage among locals.
The company said in a statement to the New York Times that a cat had “darted under our vehicle as it was pulling away.”
The company on Thursday said it had recalled over 3,000 of its vehicles in the U.S. due to a software issue, which was fixed with an update, Reuters reported. Waymo had recalled certain vehicles with the fifth-generation automated driving system (ADS) operating with software that caused vehicles to drive past stopped school buses, increasing the risk of a crash, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
— With files from Reuters
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