SAN FRANCISCO, June 24 (San Francisco News Online) — Waymo has filed a voluntary recall covering 3,871 vehicles equipped with its 5th Generation Automated Driving System after federal safety regulators said the software could let a robotaxi enter a closed freeway construction zone and keep driving, including incidents reviewed in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in the recall report that driving through a closed construction zone increases the risk of a crash. The filing, listed as campaign number 26E035000, was submitted by Waymo LLC and applies to vehicles in the United States.
Waymo said the remedy is still under development. In the meantime, the company said it has modified the scope of its vehicle operations to restrict freeway driving.
The company said it will update the ADS software so the vehicles can better detect construction zones and avoid entering them, free of charge.
In an email statement quoted by CNBC, Waymo said it had “identified an area of improvement regarding performance around freeway construction sites.” The company said it voluntarily limited freeway operations last month while making improvements, informed state and federal regulators, and filed the voluntary recall with NHTSA.
The filing reviewed incidents in Phoenix and in the San Francisco Bay Area before the recall was submitted, according to the federal report and news accounts of it. CNBC reported that Waymo said it had voluntarily limited freeway operations while it worked on the fix.
Fox News reported that Waymo said no collisions or injuries were reported in the incidents reviewed. NHTSA’s recall notice says the issue is tied to Waymo’s fifth-generation automated driving system.
For riders in San Francisco and across the Bay Area, the interim restriction means Waymo’s freeway operations are narrower while the software update is finished. Waymo said it continues to safely serve passengers on surface streets in the cities where it operates.
The recall is national in scope and covers 3,871 Waymo vehicles, making it one of the larger software recalls filed this year for an autonomous driving system. The NHTSA report says the fix will be provided at no cost once it is ready.
Waymo has not given a public timetable for completing the software update, and the federal filing says only that the remedy is under development.
The Bay Area incidents give the recall a local transportation impact in San Francisco, where freeway access is an important part of many cross-city trips and where city and state agencies continue to oversee the growth of autonomous ride service on public roads.
