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.

Steve Rose goes for a spin. Steve Rose goes for a spin. 'We don't tell the car what it should do': my ride in a self-driving taxi Driverless'robotaxis' will be accepting fares in Britain's biggest city by the end of next year. Can they deal with London's medieval roads, hordes of pedestrians and errant ebikers? 'I'm really excited to show you this," says Alex Kendall, the CEO of Wayve, as he gets behind the wheel of one of the company's electric Ford Mustangs. The car pulls up to a junction at a busy road in King's Cross, London, all by itself. "You can see that it's going to control the speed, steering, brake, indicators," he says to me - I'm in the passenger seat. "It's making decisions as it goes.

Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2026 is Feb. 25 Valve's Steam Machine: Everything we know DoorDashers are getting paid to close Waymo's self-driving car doors The companies are running a pilot program in Atlanta. A few days ago, a Redditor posted in the community for DoorDash drivers that they received an offer to close a Waymo vehicle's door. The job paid a guaranteed fee of $6.25 with a $5 extra on top of it after the DoorDasher verifies that it has been completed. Waymo has confirmed to and that, yes, it is indeed paying Dashers to shut the doors of its self-driving cars. And it makes sense because, well, there's nobody to do it otherwise if a passenger accidentally leaves it open.

Stuck in regulatory limbo, the self-driving-vehicle developer is encouraging residents of Washington, DC, to message public officials to help get its robotaxis onto roads. Waymo needs some help, according to an email message the self-driving developer sent to residents of Washington, DC, on Thursday. For more than a year, Waymo has been pushing city officials to pass new regulations allowing its robotaxis to operate in the district. So far, self-driving cars can test in the city with humans behind the wheel, but cannot operate in driver-free mode. The Alphabet subsidiary--and its lobbyists--have asked local lawmakers, including Mayor Muriel Bower and members of the city council, to create new rules allowing the tech to go truly driverless on its public roads.

Valve's Steam Machine: Everything we know The company plans to offer rides to the public in Nashville sometime this year. Waymo has gotten a step closer to offering robotaxi rides to the public in Nashville, Tennessee. The company the city and making sure they can operate as fully autonomous rides before launching a paid service in the location. Waymo announced that it was planning to bring its robotaxis to Nashville in September 2025, with the intention opening up rides to the public sometime this year. The company has been testing its technology in Nashville since then, but it has yet say when it'll start accepting bookings for rides.