Waymo expands pause to four cities as robotaxis keep driving into floods

Waymo has present paused work successful 4 cities due to the fact that its robotaxis are struggling to woody with dense rainfall and flooded roads, a occupation that already prompted the company to contented a callback past week.

One of Waymo’s robotaxis was spotted driving done a flooded thoroughfare successful Atlanta, Georgia, connected Wednesday earlier it yet got stuck for astir an hour, according to section quality reports. The conveyance was recovered and removed from the scene, Waymo told TechCrunch. Waymo says it paused work successful the city, conscionable similar it has successful San Antonio, Texas, portion it figures retired a solution.

“Safety is Waymo’s apical priority, some for our riders and everyone we stock the roadworthy with. During a play of aggravated rainfall yesterday successful Atlanta, an unoccupied Waymo conveyance encountered a flooded roadworthy and stopped,” the institution said successful a statement.

Waymo besides halted work successful Dallas and Houston due to the fact that of terrible upwind crossed Texas this week, the institution told Bloomberg News precocious Thursday.

Waymo admitted that it hadn’t finished processing a “final remedy” for avoiding flooded areas erstwhile it issued its bundle callback past week. Instead, the institution said that it shipped an update to its fleet that placed “restrictions astatine times and successful locations wherever determination is an elevated hazard of encountering a flooded, higher-speed roadway,” according to documents released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

But adjacent those precautions seemingly were not capable to halt the Waymo robotaxi from entering a flooded intersection successful Atlanta. Waymo told TechCrunch connected Thursday that the tempest successful Atlanta produced truthful overmuch rainfall that flooding was happening earlier the National Weather Service had issued a flash flood warning, watch, oregon advisory. The institution said those alerts are portion of a larger acceptable of signals it relies connected to hole the vehicles for mediocre weather.

“NHTSA is alert of this incident, is successful connection with Waymo, and volition instrumentality due enactment if necessary,” a spokesperson for the information regulator told TechCrunch regarding the robotaxi that got stuck successful Atlanta.

This is not the archetypal clip Waymo has struggled to rapidly stamp retired problematic behaviour with its robotaxis. When radical started to announcement Waymo robotaxis illegally passing stopped schoolhouse buses past year, the institution shipped a hole that was expected to code the contented — lone for its fleet to continue making amerciable maneuvers astir schoolhouse buses.

Waymo’s behaviour astir schoolhouse buses is astatine the halfway of 1 of 2 sets of progressive investigations into the company.

Both the NHTSA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are looking into this problem. Waymo has already produced a batch of documents for the NHTSA, each of which were redacted to the public. On May 15, the NHTSA sent a 2nd papers petition to Waymo due to the fact that the company’s archetypal effect “necessitates that [NHTSA] person further information and information.”

The different acceptable of investigations from the NHTSA and NTSB impact a January 23 incidental wherever a Waymo robotaxi crashed into a child successful Santa Monica, California. Waymo has said that its robotaxi braked to astir six miles per hr earlier it struck that kid and that she suffered insignificant injuries.

This communicative has been updated with much accusation astir however Waymo uses National Weather Service alerts, and to see caller work pauses successful Houston and Dallas.