| >> If there's a mechanical or electrical problem that's preventing the trunk from opening, sending the car back to you won't fix that. Fair enough. If there was, they already blew it. The proper response then was to say: "We apologize, there is some mechanical or electrical problem that prevented the trunk from opening, we parked the car and failed to fix it remotely, so we must bring it back to the depot. How can we best arrange to get your luggage to you?" >>Giving him a free trip to pick it up is the best option they had. No, they have many options to deliver his luggage. >> I'm sure there are other liabilities they'd be exposing themselves to if they did that. If so, this is a problem solved more than a half-century ago by the airlines. And there is no more liability than them holding onto it. The standard airline practice has been as long as I can remember, if they can't get it to you at the airport within two hours, they will drive it to you wherever you are at your destination or home. I've had, or watched friends on the same trip have, lost luggage delivered multiple times across multiple decades, sometimes a half-hour drive from the airport, and sometimes 3+hour drives up into the mountains to deliver it. Across multiple countries. Waymo could use any of the airline luggage services, FedEx, a courier, or multiple other options. This was straight-up, zero question, Waymo's fault. Waymo/Alphabet has sufficient assets even cash on hand that hiring a premium white-glove concierge service to personally deliver it on a private jet would not even show up as a rounding error in their budget or accounting. Not that such a service is necessary, but it is obviously possible without question. Moreover, the difference in publicity between what they did and hiring such a service would be worth far more than the service. Instead of multiple articles about how they basically told the customer "FU, it's your problem, take your time to fix it" and multiple discussions damaging their reputation, there could be the opposite, we'd be discussion how "They had this edge-case problem, and look how they went to make it right for the guy; we can trust them". Even if they spent $50k on white-glove private jet service, it would buy them 10X that marketing value. It is obvious no one at Waymo is thinking. |