Putting aside all the late stage capitalism going on here, I still can't get over the fact that Alphabet (Google) spent billions of dollars developing self driving car technology only to arrive at, "Oh shit. Someone left the car door open. What do we do now?"
this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2026
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Giving them the ability to close their own doors just screams "kid's arm smashed in automatic car door failure".
I used to have a Tesla (traded it in). In the app you could open, but not close, the windows. It could be inconvenient at times but I assume the reasoning was similar.
That’s weird. Most of the cars I have had can open and close the windows from the fob. (Usually double press then hold unlock or lock, though one car I had [Accord] required the key in the door for the windows to go up.)
Right - I think the difference is that, when using a fob, you're likely within line of sight or at least nearby your car and so presumably could observe or otherwise check for car occupants, but so long as your car and phone both have reception you can use the app from anywhere without any clue who might be in or around the car.
New cars have automatic window up functions but strictly dont apply enough pressure to choke a child
Mine goes up automatically and if it encounters resistance, it goes back down again. I guess this is too hard for Tesla.
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Behold the miracle of the slipping clutch, millenials. See It working without being digital and all without an app by the ancient secrets of mechanics!
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This shows you just how strong our culture is an influence here. You can leave a door open and cause enough trouble that they need to hire someone else to go manually shut it. I’m willing to bet there are a lot of seemingly innocuous ways to cause friction with these companies. The more people know and exploit them, the better.
Supposedly a salt circle drawn like "no entry" road markings can trap them.
And, as a bonus, any ghosts or demons therein!
At first I think you were jokingly referring to them as demons. Now I realize you’re actually serious…
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Even if this thing was left on a single city block for 8 hours with its door open, the data it collects about nearby cars, Bluetooth devices, phones, WiFi SSIDs, recorded video/audio, etc. makes it worth it for alphabet, I imagine.
When I was a kid my dad would drive forward and slam the brakes to close our van door.
It was really fun until that became the only way that closed the door.
Clearly that's why it's called DoorDash. /s
Take my upvote and gtfo 😂
Does it charge extra to the last person that used the Waymo to cover the cost? Because if not, might as well just leave the door open every time, now you're a job creator.
Just keep the door and you're creating even more jobs in the door factory.
They have self-driving cars, but self-closing doors is still at least 10-15 years away.
I imagine there would be a gigantic list of safety concerns for self-closing doors.
They already exist though? There are a bunch of EVs with servos in their doors. You can still overpower it just like you can an auto closing trunk
edit: and they can also have proximity sensors, i know cadillac does that and their implementation is hyper vigilant, will stop the front door even if you're next to the pillar
Eh, we already have self closing trunks. As long as they are programmed correctly (not by Tesla) they sense resistance and stop.
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I've seen cars with self-closing doors though. Also I'm not sure where the safety consideration would come in since we have self closing building doors right now and no one seems to get cut in half by those.
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Hmmm…so it costs Waymo $11.25 if you “forget” to shut the door.
Maybe people will become very forgetful.
Or, upon reflection, just don’t use Waymo, and don’t play into it at all.
If you leave it all the way open, the car just needs to drive a couple feet with decent acceleration to close it.
If you ALMOST close it, but not all the way, that would require some sort of intervention.
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The cost of doing business is to pay a poor to close a door and keep the wheels of progress spinning.
so from now on leave all waymo's open and if you see one open no you don't
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Give people a dollar discount off their ride if they close the door on the way out.
Why are people leaving the doors open in the first place that's just wild. The super excited to get to work or something I don't get it.
Wouldn't the simplest solution be to just ban people who leave the doors open, it's not that hard to close them.
Probably the doors are in the "unlatched" position rather than wide open.
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Why can't they build a mechanism where the car can close its own doors. I thought that would be the smaller part compared to autonomous self driving
The gig worker is the mechanism. Very innovative tech.
I know I can shut a passenger side car door with just the accelerator and brakes. If it's not latched completely then a bollard or a curbside tree will suffice.
Human driven taxis have mechanically closing passenger doors for decades. It's a big bug software and a management a failure . This can't be street legal. Autonomous cabs are billionaires snake oil
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see? ai does create new jobs. checkmate ai doomers /s
is there no saving this timeline?
The future is clocking in for another 12 hour shift at the "making minor adjustments to the super intelligent AI dick sucking factory" so you can afford to eat the bugs and live in the pod
Its funny because in the US, there are regulations that make it such that, even if they have the capability to close the doors remotely and anti pinch sensors etc, they are not allowed to unless it is done by someone from a device nearby while they hold down the close button.
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