After Waymo Drove Into Texas Floodwaters, a Recall

Waymo is updating software on almost 3,800 self-driving vehicles after one of its robotaxis drove into floodwaters in Texas and was carried into a creek. In a letter posted this week by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Alphabet-owned company said the voluntary recall applies to cars using its fifth- and sixth-generation autonomous driving systems in the US, reports the BBC. The move follows an April 20 incident in San Antonio in which an unoccupied Waymo vehicle entered a flooded roadway and was swept away. No injuries were reported.

Waymo says that safety is its "primary priority" and notes that it's adding "additional software safeguards," including limiting access to areas prone to flash flooding, per CNBC. The company has paused its San Antonio service and says rides will resume once the software fix is fully deployed, per the BBC. It currently provides more than 500,000 trips per week in such cities as San Francisco, Miami, and Austin, Texas, and is aiming to launch a robotaxi service in London by September.

Experts say the Texas episode highlights the limits of current autonomous systems. Jack Stilgoe, a science and tech policy professor at University College London, notes that all self-driving services have boundaries on where and when they can safely operate, and that those limits often become evident only after problems occur. Recent outages involving other robotaxi fleets in San Francisco and Wuhan, China, have added to scrutiny from policymakers, who are pressing companies to surface safety issues before they play out on public streets.