Waymo's Robotaxis Get Stranded in Flooded Streets

Waymo has paused service in four cities - Atlanta, Georgia; San Antonio, Texas; Dallas; and Houston - after its robotaxis struggled to deal with heavy rain and flooded roads.

According to local news reports, one of Waymo's robotaxis was spotted driving through a flooded street in Atlanta on Wednesday before it got stuck for about an hour. The vehicle was recovered and removed from the scene, Waymo told TechCrunch.

Waymo says it paused service in the city, just like it has in San Antonio, Texas, while it figures out a solution. The company's statement emphasized that safety is its top priority, both for its riders and everyone it shares the road with.

"Safety is Waymo’s top priority, both for our riders and everyone we share the road with. During a period of intense rain yesterday in Atlanta, an unoccupied Waymo vehicle encountered a flooded road and stopped," the company said in a statement.

Waymo admitted that it hadn't finished developing a "final remedy" for avoiding flooded areas when it issued its software recall last week. Instead, the company said that it shipped an update to its fleet that placed "restrictions at times and in locations where there is an elevated risk of encountering a flooded, higher-speed roadway," according to documents released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

However, even those precautions apparently weren't enough to stop the Waymo robotaxi from entering a flooded intersection in Atlanta. Waymo told TechCrunch on Thursday that the storm in Atlanta produced so much rainfall that flooding was happening before the National Weather Service had issued a flash flood warning, watch, or advisory.

The company said those alerts are part of a larger set of signals it relies on to prepare the vehicles for poor weather.

"NHTSA is aware of this incident, is in communication with Waymo, and will take appropriate action if necessary," a spokesperson for the safety regulator told TechCrunch regarding the robotaxi that got stuck in Atlanta.

This isn't the first time Waymo has struggled to quickly stamp out problematic behavior with its robotaxis. When people started to notice Waymo robotaxis illegally passing stopped school buses last year, the company shipped a fix that was supposed to address the issue - only for its fleet to continue making illegal maneuvers around school buses.

Waymo's behavior around school buses is at the center of one of two sets of active 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, all of which were redacted to the public.

On May 15, the NHTSA sent a second document request to Waymo because the company's initial response "necessitates that [NHTSA] receive further data and information."

The other set of investigations from the NHTSA and NTSB involve a January 23 incident where a Waymo robotaxi crashed into a child in Santa Monica, California. Waymo has said that its robotaxi braked to around six miles per hour before it struck that child and that she suffered minor injuries.

According to the article, Waymo has also paused service in Houston and Dallas due to severe weather across Texas this week.

When Waymo issued its software recall last week, it said that it shipped an update to its fleet that placed restrictions at times and in locations where there is an elevated risk of encountering a flooded, higher-speed roadway.