Severe weather and flooded roadways have led Waymo to temporarily stop its robotaxis in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio.
Atlanta was the first to have service stopped, after several Waymo vehicles had issues driving into flood waters on Wednesday.
On Friday, Waymo said that “out of an abundance of caution for the forecasted severe weather,” it would pause service in the four Texas cities as well, according to WUPA-TV.
Rachel Knudsen, who hailed a Waymo in Atlanta, told WSB-TV that although her ride got past one pool of water, when heading towards a second pool “the Waymo didn’t appear to be slowing down as much as I would have expected it to slow down and hit the water. It wasn’t, you know, an incredibly deep pool of water, but it was enough.”
Ms. Knudsen also told WSB-TV that Waymo, a subsidiary of Google parent company Alphabet, credited her ill-fated trip and sent a human driver out to retrieve her.
Another robotaxi that got stuck in Atlanta Wednesday was unoccupied at the time, and was eventually recovered from the floodwaters, Waymo said, according to The Associated Press.
Earlier this month, Waymo recalled nearly 3,800 of its vehicles to provide software updates to its fifth and sixth generation automated driving systems and further refine the protocols for its robotaxis in floods.
The updates were prompted by an April 20 incident in San Antonio where an unoccupied Waymo robotaxi did not stop for floodwaters, only managing to slow down before driving into a flooded section of road.
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