The Alphabet-owned company has temporarily suspended operations in five US cities while investigating why its robotaxis repeatedly mistake flooded roads for passable ones.
The flooded road issue first emerged when a Waymo robotaxi drove onto a flooded road in San Antonio, Texas, on 20/4 and was swept into a creek. Fortunately, no one was in the vehicle. This incident led Waymo to recall nearly 3,800 robotaxis for repairs.
While the company was still working to resolve the issue, another of its vehicles became stranded in floodwaters after heavy rain in Atlanta, Georgia, earlier this week. 10News reported the electric vehicle was stuck for about one hour before the water receded, allowing company personnel to access and control the car.
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A Waymo robotaxi stranded on a flooded road in Atlanta. *Photo: 11alive*
Following the Texas incident, Waymo suspended service in San Antonio. This has now expanded to Austin, Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston, partly due to the severe weather sweeping through Texas this week.
Speaking to TechCrunch, Waymo stated that it uses alerts from the National Weather Service (NWS) to prepare its vehicles for difficult weather conditions. However, in the case of the Atlanta flash flood, they explained that a storm produced such an excessive amount of rain in a short period that the self-driving taxi became stranded before any alerts could be issued.
As part of the recall issued last week, Waymo announced it is implementing operational restrictions in high flood-risk areas and on high-speed roads, adding that work to find a "definitive solution" is ongoing.
Currently, competitors like Tesla and Zoox are striving to catch up but have not yet matched Waymo's scale.
Waymo stated it has accumulated 170 million miles (nearly 274 million km) of autonomous driving, with 13 times fewer injury-causing collisions than human drivers on the routes it operates.
Waymo provides 500,000 rides per week and aims to exceed one million paid rides weekly by 2026. While most Waymo vehicles currently in use are Jaguar SUVs, the company recently began testing a model from Chinese manufacturer Zeekr in Los Angeles.
