Waymo is temporarily halting freeway operations for its robotaxi service in several U.S. markets as the company works to address performance issues in construction zones, FOX Business has learned.
The Alphabet-owned company confirmed Thursday that it was pausing freeway operations while updating its software.
“Safety is Waymo’s top priority, both for our riders and everyone we share the road with,” a Waymo spokesperson said in a statement to FOX Business. “We have temporarily paused freeway operations, as we work to integrate recent technical learnings into our software and expect to resume these routes soon.”
Waymo said the pause affects only freeway driving and that surface street operations remain active.
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The company said its vehicles navigate construction zones more than 10,000 times per day and that it is using the pause to improve robotaxi performance on freeways.
The announcement comes after Waymo paused operations in Atlanta following flash-flooding incidents, while separately working to improve performance around construction zones and flooded roadways.
That pause followed reports of Waymo vehicles encountering floodwater in Atlanta on Wednesday; AJC reported one vehicle required recovery, while Waymo said a handful of others were temporarily waylaid.
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The move also comes after Waymo filed a recall covering 3,791 vehicles equipped with fifth- and sixth-generation Automated Driving Systems over a flooding-related software issue that NHTSA said could result in loss of vehicle control.
The recall followed an April 20 incident in which an unoccupied Waymo vehicle detected a potentially untraversable flooded section of a roadway with a 40 mph speed limit and proceeded at reduced speed, according to NHTSA.
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The NHTSA report found that when a Waymo robotaxi approaches standing water on higher-speed roads, it may slow down but fail to fully stop after detecting the hazard.
Nearly 3,800 vehicles equipped with the company’s fifth and sixth-generation Automated Driving Systems (ADS) were recalled. Regulators estimated the defect rate at 100%.
According to NHTSA, Waymo applied an interim remedy to all affected vehicles on April 20, modifying the approved scope of operation of its ADS to exclude additional conditions that present an elevated risk of encountering a flooded, higher-speed roadway. Waymo is still developing a final remedy.
Waymo operates thousands of vehicles across the U.S., including in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin.
FOX Business’ Bonny Chu and Reuters contributed to this report.
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