Waymo issues recall to deal with a flooding problem

Waymo has issued a bundle update to its fleet of astir 4,000 vehicles to assistance them debar flooded roads arsenic portion of a callback announced by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) connected Tuesday.

But the institution hasn’t afloat solved the occupation of however its vehicles behave successful these conditions. In documents released by NHTSA, the national information regulator says Waymo is inactive “developing the last remedy for this recall.”

The contented appears to beryllium that Waymo’s robotaxis were slowing, but not stopping, erstwhile encountering flooded roads that they could not traverse, according to NHTSA. Robotaxis utilizing some Waymo’s fifth- and sixth-generation autonomous conveyance systems are affected.

The regulator said the callback applies to 3,791 vehicles — giving america a much up-to-date knowing of conscionable however galore vehicles Waymo has connected the roads successful astir a twelve U.S. cities.

Waymo has present issued aggregate recalls for its self-driving cars. The company’s archetypal callback came successful February 2024 aft it discovered 2 robotaxis successful Phoenix had separately crashed into the aforesaid towed vehicle. Since then, Waymo has issued recalls to hole low-speed crashes with parking gates and telephone poles, arsenic good arsenic to code illegal driving successful the vicinity of schoolhouse buses.

Waymo decided to contented the callback successful precocious April aft its robotaxis struggled to navigate flooding successful cardinal Texas; successful 1 incident, an bare robotaxi was swept distant successful San Antonio. The institution has besides paused operations successful the city.

The archetypal update sent to its fleet places “restrictions astatine times and successful locations wherever determination is an elevated hazard of encountering a flooded, higher-speed roadway,” according to NHTSA.

"We person identified an country of betterment regarding untraversable flooded lanes circumstantial to higher-speed roadways, and person made the determination to record a voluntary bundle callback with NHTSA related to this scenario," Waymo said successful a statement. "We are moving to instrumentality further bundle safeguards and person enactment mitigations successful place, including refining our utmost upwind operations during periods of aggravated rain, limiting entree to areas wherever flash flooding mightiness occur."