Waymo Pauses Atlanta Robotaxis After 1 Car Stalls in Flood, Extending Weather Halt to 2 Cities
Updated
Updated · TechCrunch · May 21
Waymo Pauses Atlanta Robotaxis After 1 Car Stalls in Flood, Extending Weather Halt to 2 Cities
10 articles · Updated · TechCrunch · May 21
Atlanta service was suspended after an unoccupied Waymo robotaxi drove into a flooded street Wednesday and sat stuck for about an hour before being removed.
Waymo said the storm flooded roads before the National Weather Service issued a flash-flood alert, undermining safeguards that rely partly on those warnings to restrict operations.
Last week’s software recall had no final fix for flooded roads, only limits for higher-risk times and locations, and those measures still failed to keep the vehicle out of the flooded intersection.
San Antonio has already been paused for similar weather concerns, adding to scrutiny from NHTSA and NTSB probes into Waymo’s school-bus behavior and a January crash that injured a child in Santa Monica.
How can a robotaxi drive millions of miles yet still be defeated by a flooded road?
As weather intensifies, is the dream of a go-anywhere, anytime robotaxi slipping further away?