The pale blue vans have begun picking up passengers in California and Arizona. Waymo has begun offering rides in its brand-new Ojai robotaxi to passengers in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix. Trips will be free for a limited time. The Ojai is a big step for Waymo. This is the company's first purpose-built robotaxi.

The pale-blue Ojai vehicles will start picking up members of the public in California and Arizona today. Starting today, Alphabet self-driving vehicle developer Waymo will start picking up members of the public in its new Ojai vehicles (pronounced "oh hai")--pale blue boxy minivans studded with sensors and complete with steering wheels, even though they're designed to travel without drivers. For now, the rides in these new cars, which can be summoned through Waymo's app, will be free. It's been a long road for the vehicle, first announced by Waymo in 2021 and tested on public streets since 2024. It's also a weird time for Waymo: The self-driving-vehicle company, which is trying to expand quickly across the US and the world, shut down service in six US cities last week due to issues with how its vehicles react to flooding.

Best Power Banks Best Smart Rings Routers vs. Modems Choose the Right Laptop Smart Sprinklers Deals Delivered The company is mapping Alexandria and, soon, Arlington--right across from the power center of Washington, DC. Self-driving cars aren't yet permitted to operate in Virginia. But Alphabet-owned Waymo began transporting its cars to the state last week, a Waymo representative told Virginia officials, to map Arlington and Alexandria, in the northern part of the state. For most autonomous vehicle companies, mapping, or the creation of sensor-aided and ultra-precise digital representations of streets and the features around them, is the first step required to launch a local robotaxi service. Drivers will operate the mapping vehicles for now, Waymo says.

The company has suspended operations in a second city. Autonomous cars are getting more capable all the time, but they remain a bit too willing to fight mother nature and lose. Case in point: Waymo has halted its robotaxi service in a second US city in the past fortnight due to issues with heavy rain and flooding. First reported by, the company has paused its operations in Atlanta after one of its self-driving vehicles was seen driving through a heavily flooded street, where it eventually got stuck for around an hour. This comes after Waymo also temporarily suspended its San Antonio service last week and issued a voluntary recall for nearly 4,000 robotaxis.

Waymo faces scrutiny over safety and espionage concerns after recalling 3,791 vehicles following an incident in which a robotaxi drove into floodwaters.

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Waymo is recalling thousands of its self-driving cars in the US over a software issue that could allow vehicles to drive into flooded roads. According to a letter posted on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) website on Tuesday, the voluntary recall affects nearly 3,800 robotaxis that use the company's fifth and sixth-generation automated driving systems. It follows an incident on 20 April in San Antonio, Texas, where an empty Waymo vehicle entered a flooded road and was swept into a creek. The company, which hopes to be operating a robotaxi service in London by September, said it was working on additional software safeguards, according to CNBC. The BBC has contacted Waymo, which is owned by Google's parent company Alphabet, for comment.

Waymo has recalled 3,791 robotaxis after an incident involving a flooded road, according to a report by . The company filed the voluntary recall with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) after a vehicle drove into a flooded road last week in San Antonio. Nobody was injured, as the taxi was not occupied, but the vehicle was swept away by the flood . The robotaxi should have routed around the danger, but didn't. This is another example of how unique weather scenarios can trip up self-driving vehicles .

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"I believe the technology was deployed too quickly in too vast amounts, with hundreds of vehicles, when it wasn't really ready," one police official told federal regulators last month. Emergency first-responder leaders told federal regulators in a private meeting last month that they were frustrated with the performance of autonomous vehicles on their streets--that city firefighters, police officers, EMTs, and paramedics are forced to spend time during emergencies resolving issues with frozen or stuck cars. One fire official called them "a safety issue for our crews as well as the victims." WIRED obtained an audio recording of the meeting. Officials from San Francisco and Austin, where Waymo has been ferrying passengers without drivers for more than a year, said the vehicles' performance is getting worse.