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 corporate to problem a recall final week.
Considered one of Waymo’s robotaxis was noticed driving via a flooded avenue in Atlanta, Georgia on Wednesday earlier than it finally acquired 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 prime precedence, each for our riders and everybody we share the highway with. Throughout a interval of intense rain yesterday in Atlanta, an unoccupied Waymo car encountered a flooded highway and stopped,” the corporate stated in an announcement.
Waymo admitted that it hadn’t completed growing a “last treatment” for avoiding flooded areas when it issued its software program recall final week. As an alternative, the corporate stated that it shipped an replace to its fleet that positioned “restrictions at occasions and in areas the place there may be an elevated danger of encountering a flooded, higher-speed roadway,” in keeping with paperwork launched by the Nationwide Freeway Visitors Security Administration (NHTSA).
However even these precautions apparently weren’t sufficient to cease the Waymo robotaxi from getting into the flooded intersection in Atlanta. Waymo advised TechCrunch on Thursday that the storm in Atlanta produced a lot rainfall that flooding was taking place 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 so as to keep away from driving into deep water.
This isn’t the primary time Waymo has struggled to rapidly stamp out problematic conduct 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 problem — just for its fleet to proceed making unlawful maneuvers round college buses.
Waymo’s conduct round college buses is on the middle of considered one of two units of lively investigations into the corporate.
Each the NHTSA and the Nationwide Transportation Security Board (NTSB) are wanting into this drawback. Waymo has already produced a batch of paperwork to the NHTSA, all of which had been redacted to the general public. On Could 15, the NHTSA despatched a second doc request to Waymo as a result of the corporate’s preliminary response “necessitates that [NHTSA] obtain additional information 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 baby in Santa Monica, California. Waymo has stated that its robotaxi braked to round six miles per hour earlier than it struck that baby, and that she suffered minor accidents.
If you buy via hyperlinks in our articles, we could earn a small fee. This doesn’t have an effect on our editorial independence.
