Waymo has now paused service in two cities as a result of its robotaxis are struggling to take care of heavy rain and flooded roads, an issue that already prompted the company to situation a recall final week.
One in all Waymo’s robotaxis was noticed driving by way of a flooded road in Atlanta, Georgia on Wednesday earlier than it finally obtained caught for about an hour, in accordance to local news reports. The car was recovered and faraway from the scene, Waymo advised TechCrunch. Waymo says it paused service within the metropolis, similar to it has in San Antonio, Texas, whereas it figures out an answer.
“Security is Waymo’s high precedence, each for our riders and everybody we share the street with. Throughout a interval of intense rain yesterday in Atlanta, an unoccupied Waymo car encountered a flooded street and stopped,” the corporate stated in a press release.
Waymo admitted that it hadn’t completed growing a “closing treatment” for avoiding flooded areas when it issued its software program recall final week. As a substitute, the corporate stated that it shipped an replace to its fleet that positioned “restrictions at instances and in areas the place there’s an elevated danger of encountering a flooded, higher-speed roadway,” based on paperwork launched by the Nationwide Freeway Visitors Security Administration (NHTSA).
However even these precautions apparently weren’t sufficient to cease the Waymo robotaxi from coming into the flooded intersection in Atlanta. Waymo advised TechCrunch on Thursday that the storm in Atlanta produced a lot rainfall that flooding was occurring earlier than the Nationwide Climate Service had issued a flash flood warning, watch, or advisory. The corporate’s fleet apparently depends on these formal notices as a way to keep away from driving into deep water.
This isn’t the primary time Waymo has struggled to rapidly stamp out problematic habits with its robotaxis. When individuals began to note Waymo robotaxis illegally passing stopped college buses final yr, the corporate shipped a repair that was supposed to handle the difficulty — just for its fleet to continue making illegal maneuvers around school buses.
Waymo’s habits round college buses is on the middle of one in all two units of energetic investigations into the corporate.
Each the NHTSA and the Nationwide Transportation Security Board (NTSB) are wanting into this downside. Waymo has already produced a batch of paperwork to the NHTSA, all of which have been redacted to the general public. On Might 15, the NHTSA despatched a second doc request to Waymo as a result of the corporate’s preliminary response “necessitates that (NHTSA) obtain additional knowledge and knowledge.”
The opposite set of investigations from the NHTSA and NTSB contain a January 23 incident the place a Waymo robotaxi crashed into a child in Santa Monica, California. Waymo has stated that its robotaxi braked to round six miles per hour earlier than it struck that little one, and that she suffered minor accidents.
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