Waymo enlists DoorDash drivers to close vehicle doors in Atlanta

Alphabet-owned autonomous vehicle company Waymo is paying DoorDash delivery drivers in Atlanta to manually close vehicle doors when they are left open. The pilot program, which both companies confirmed is legitimate, addresses a specific operational bottleneck: when a passenger leaves a door open, the driverless car becomes immobile. The arrangement came to light after a Reddit post detailed an odd request received by a driver. Instead of a food delivery, the driver was offered $6.25 to travel less than a mile to a Waymo vehicle and close its door, with an additional $5 offered after verified completion.

In a joint response, Waymo and DoorDash explained the purpose of the initiative: “Waymo is currently running a pilot program in Atlanta to enhance its AV fleet efficiency. In the rare event a vehicle door is left ajar, preventing the car from departing, nearby Dashers are notified, allowing Waymo to get its vehicles back on the road quickly.”

This is not the first time Waymo has outsourced physical interventions to gig workers. In Los Angeles, the company works with Honk, a towing service app. Through this partnership, Honk users in Los Angeles have been offered up to $24 to close a Waymo vehicle door when it is left ajar—more than double the payment offered to DoorDash drivers in Atlanta. These localized partnerships show how autonomous vehicle operators are relying on existing on-demand labor networks to resolve minor physical disruptions that software cannot fix.

These manual workarounds persist even as Waymo scales its broader operations. The company recently raised $16 billion to expand its driverless car operations internationally. Additionally, the door-closing partnership in Atlanta is just one facet of Waymo and DoorDash’s broader relationship. In October, the companies launched an autonomous delivery service in Phoenix, where Waymo vehicles deliver food and groceries to DoorDash customers. However, until future vehicle models integrate automated door closures, the company remains dependent on human gig workers to keep its current fleets moving.

Why it matters

Waymo’s reliance on gig workers to resolve basic operational failures highlights the persistent human-in-the-loop requirements necessary to keep autonomous vehicle fleets moving efficiently.