Waymo services remain suspended in San Antonio, Texas after a robotaxi drove onto flooded streets.

Waymo is recalling nearly 3,800 robotaxis from US streets over a software issue that could allow vehicles to drive onto flooded roadways.

The Alphabet-owned autonomous vehicle (AV) manufacturer reported the issue to authorities on 1 May, according to a letter on the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s website.

“The software may allow the vehicle to slow and then drive into standing water on higher speed roadways,” the letter read.

The company had temporarily suspended operations in San Antonio, Texas on 20 April after video footage showed a Waymo driving onto flooded streets in the city. More such incidents had occurred previously, according to various US publications.

Waymo told CNBC yesterday (12 May) that services continue to remain paused, meanwhile, some reports suggest services are expected to resume this week, following what would be the company’s longest halt in operations.

As per the recall notice, Waymo is pulling back “certain” 5th and 6th generation automated driving systems for a further look.

While, in the interim, it has modified vehicle operations to increase weather-related constraints and has updated vehicle maps. All affected vehicles received the interim updates by 20 April, the letter read.

In a statement to publications, Waymo said that it “identified an area of improvement regarding untraversable flooded lanes specific to higher-speed roadways” and chose to file for a “voluntary software recall” with US authorities.

The company added that it is working on “additional software safeguards” and has put “mitigations” in place to limit where its vehicles operate during extreme weather.

Waymo’s robotaxi services are facing their second major disruption in five months following massive power outage in San Francisco that stalled its AVs, disrupted traffic and caused a gridlock. The robotaxis has also faced criticism for other issues, including not yielding to school buses.

Meanwhile, Waymo’s Chinese competitor Baidu is reportedly facing a similar issue in Wuhan after more than 100 of its Apollo Go robotaxis abruptly stopped on the city’s roads in late March.

Bloomberg, late last month, reported that Chinese authorities suspended issuing new licences for level-four autonomous vehicles, preventing AV companies from adding new robotaxis to their fleet or expanding to new cities.

Waymo picked up $16bn in its latest funding round in February led by Dragoneer Investment Group, DST Global and Sequoia Capital.

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