Waymo Recalls About 3,900 Robotaxis After Some Drove Into 'Freeway Construction Zones' (cnbc.com)
- Reference: 0184005046
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/06/20/0621217/waymo-recalls-about-3900-robotaxis-after-some-drove-into-freeway-construction-zones
- Source link: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/18/waymo-nhtsa-voluntary-recall-robotaxis-entered-freeway-construction-zones.html
> Waymo is recalling almost 3,900 robotaxis in the U.S. to fix software issues after some cars drove into freeway construction zones, according to [2]notices filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The voluntary recall, the Alphabet-owned company's second in just over a month, followed 13 known incidents where Waymo robotaxis drove into construction zones on freeways in Phoenix, or entered freeway lanes with active construction in the San Francisco area, the filings published Thursday said... [3]A letter posted to the regulator's website... noted that, "Driving through a closed construction zone increases the risk of a crash..."
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> [Waymo said in a statement emailed to CNBC] "We voluntarily restricted freeway operations last month while making improvements, proactively notified state and federal regulators, and decided to file a voluntary software recall with NHTSA. We continue to safely serve riders on surface streets in all the cities where we operate...."
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> The company implemented another voluntary recall in May after some of its robotaxis had driven into flooded zones or standing water. The NHTSA Safety Board also initiated a probe of Waymo after a January incident in which a robotaxi illegally passed a stopped school bus.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/18/waymo-nhtsa-voluntary-recall-robotaxis-entered-freeway-construction-zones.html
[2] https://www.nhtsa.gov/?nhtsaId=26E035000
[3] https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2026/RCAK-26E035-6843.pdf
Recall? (Score:2)
Recalls are for when the car has to be voluntarily brought in for an update. Waymo can just push the update. What's the point of a recall?
Re: (Score:2)
I had a recall on my vehicle and it was also "just" an OTA update - I didn't have to take it anywhere.
Re: (Score:2)
PR
Re: (Score:2)
IIRC, a "recall" is a notification of a defect in a car that needs addressing. If that can be done OTA, it's still a recall.
Re: (Score:2)
This way the headline sounds SCARY!
It is technically a recall by the NHTSA definition, even if the fix is just an OTA software update.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe because they do not have the patch ready? So they are suspending the service.
Re: Recall? (Score:3)
It's probably so they don't have to go fetch hundreds of cars if the update goes wrong. Same reason I don't update software when I have something important tomorrow.
who will do hard time hitting a worker can be char (Score:2)
who will do hard time hitting a worker can be charged as a felony under the state’s “endangerment of a highway worker” or “aggravated endangerment of a highway worker”
Re: (Score:2)
Probably the guy who makes minimum wage plugging in the chargers.
Construction sites (Score:2)
are miracles of bizarchitecture and non-conformance. And often rely on the courts sorting out all possible problems something an automated car may not rely on.
Recall to base via construction zones? (Score:2)
So some will crash in construction zones in the process of recalling them?
The standard pro self-driving argument (Score:2)
Whenever self-driving cars are criticized, the standard argument served by the defenders is almost always "Yeah but self-driving cars today already drive better than the average human driver", which, to a certain point, might very well be true.
But this argument falls flat under scrutiny. See, like most things concerning humans, the quality of human drivers follows a bell curve; There are a few superb drivers, a few shitty drivers, and most drivers are average. But with self-driving cars, all vehicules drive
Re: (Score:2)
I hope I don't end up in a situation where I need a self-driving car, because I enjoy driving way too much. And cheap public transportation is great for regular daily transportation.
So many possibilities (Score:2)
Passenger: Hey, you just sped pass that Bridge Out sign!
Johnny Cab Auto-driver: Nah. It'll be fine.
Oops! (Score:2)
Time to add another elsif!
If only (Score:2)
Seems to me the cars have no way of knowing about works that they cant look up on a database and their visual systems/models arnt yet up to the job of being able to spot possibly badly laid out dividers or cones up ahead, at least until it's too late. Probably not an easy fix.
Re:Oops! [What could possibly go wrong?] (Score:2)
Okay, I think you deserve the Funny mod but I also think it was a weak FP.
Yeah, my Subject is worse, but... The thing that is going wrong is that we are all part of a mad experiment. Some of the people doing the experiment do have good intentions, but the Waymo robotaxi that tries to follow that road... Well, you know where that road goes.
But it's a much bigger problem that the humans controlling the various flavors of the experiment have only one intention: MORE MONEY. They already have more money than any
Re: (Score:2)
It deserves informative.
The outer constraint system is human coded and fragile, trying and failing to make sure the system fails safe whenever the AI finds a new corner case to fuck up in. Predictably failing especially hard on freeways where you can't be too conservative. Pulling over and phoning home for remote control is no longer an acceptable fail safe.