Waymo is recalling software program in hundreds of its driverless taxis that might enable the autos to drive into flooded roadways, in accordance with a letter from the Nationwide Freeway Visitors Security Administration.
The letter, dated Monday and posted to the administration’s web site, issues the automated driving techniques in all 3,791 automobiles within the firm’s fleet.
“The software program might enable the automobile to sluggish after which drive into standing water on greater velocity roadways,” the regulatory physique stated within the letter. “Getting into a flooded roadway could cause a lack of automobile management, rising the chance of a crash or damage,” it stated.
Waymo stated it determined to recall the software program final month after an unoccupied automotive entered a flooded highway throughout a heavy downpour in San Antonio on April 20. Despite the fact that the highway was “untraversable,” the automobile proceeded at a lowered velocity, the security company famous in a report final week.
Chris Bonelli, a Waymo spokesman, stated by electronic mail that the corporate — which is owned by Google’s father or mother, Alphabet — “offers over half 1,000,000 journeys each week in a few of the most difficult driving environments throughout the U.S., and security is our major precedence.”
Mr. Bonelli stated Waymo had “recognized an space of enchancment” relating to flooded lanes on high-speed roadways.
“We’re working to implement extra software program safeguards and have put mitigations in place, together with refining our excessive climate operations in periods of intense rain, limiting entry to areas the place flash flooding may happen,” he stated.
In response to Waymo, the software program might be fastened with out interrupting the taxi service, since it may be up to date when the autos return to a depot for normal upkeep and recharging. Waymo has paused public service for rides in San Antonio, Mr. Bonelli stated.
The recall is one in a string of incidents which have referred to as into query the security of self-driving automobiles as they proliferate throughout main American cities.
Waymo is dealing with federal investigations into site visitors violations, and it issued a voluntary software program recall in December after studies that its robotaxis had illegally handed stopped college buses. Its automobiles have additionally been concerned in additional severe incidents, together with cases by which an ambulance was blocked from attending to the scene of a taking pictures in Austin, a cat was killed in San Francisco and a baby was struck in Santa Monica, Calif.
Whereas confronting these incidents and a normal wariness of the autonomous expertise, the corporate has been battling to earn the public’s trust. Waymo says its technology statistically outperforms people, decreasing the possibility of crashes and the ensuing severe accidents.
