Waymo paused multiple pieces of its robotaxi operation on Thursday, according to NBC News. It’s suspended all of its freeway service across the United States. It’s also stopped rides in several cities altogether. This decision comes just after one of its unoccupied vehicles drove into a flooded Atlanta road and got stuck.
The suspension affects every U.S. city where Waymo ran its interstate routes. The Atlanta pause is much broader, however. It covers the entire service Waymo operates there in tandem with Uber. It’s only temporary, but it may come as an inconvenience for riders.
The official explanation, from Waymo, is software-related. The company said it’s updating its systems to handle two of the more unpredictable conditions a robotaxi has to read: construction zones and flooded roads.
This pause comes less than a month after a recall over the same fundamental issue. It comes at a moment when Waymo’s competitors are accelerating their own push into the same market. If only the Waymo taxis could simply stop driving into flooded waters.
What Waymo Says It’s Doing Next
Freeway service is now suspended in every U.S. market where Waymo had been offering it. That includes San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Miami. Street-level rides in those cities continue.
In Atlanta, there’s no service at all at the moment from any Waymo vehicles. A Waymo spokesperson added that the company does expect to resume freeway routes soon, but didn’t offer a date.
Waymo is updating its cars’ software to improve how they handle certain construction zones, the issue underlying the freeway pause, and to improve detection of flooded roadways, the issue affecting both the Atlanta and Texas pauses.
The Recall and the Industry Race
This change follows a recall Waymo issued earlier this month that covered about 3,800 robotaxis in the United States. That one was tied to a risk that vehicles could enter flooded roads on higher-speed-limit routes. It’s the same issue now driving the current suspensions.
Waymo, which had been expanding slowly and steadily for years, has recently picked up the pace as competitors including Tesla and Amazon’s Zoox push harder into the autonomous ride market. It remains to be seen how it will continue to perform with these blunders occurring somewhat regularly.