Overview
- Waymo issued a voluntary recall for roughly 3,800 fifth‑ and sixth‑generation robotaxis after an April 20 incident in San Antonio when an unoccupied vehicle drove into standing floodwater and was swept into a creek.
- The company has paused service in multiple cities, including San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, Houston and Atlanta, and suspended freeway routes in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Miami while it updates software to address flooded roads and construction‑zone performance.
- Waymo deployed an interim over‑the‑air update that imposes operational restrictions to avoid some higher‑risk conditions but acknowledges it has not finished a final remedy to stop vehicles from entering flooded, higher‑speed roadways.
- Regulators are engaged: NHTSA is in communication with Waymo about recent flooding incidents and may act if needed, and parallel NHTSA and NTSB probes continue into other behaviors such as illegal passing of stopped school buses and a January Santa Monica crash.
- Safety advocates warn the failures expose limits in handling rare high‑risk scenarios and say the pauses could slow Waymo’s highway expansion and reduce airport and freeway trip availability for riders until the company proves reliable performance in heavy rain and construction zones.