Waymo, the self-driving ride-hailing company that started offering rides in Los Angeles last year, is having some issues with over 1,200 vehicles due to a software glitch, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Assn. The recall is happening because of a bunch of minor crashes involving gates, chains, and other stuff in the way, but thankfully, no one got hurt. The company, based in Mountain View, California, said they’ve already fixed the problem with a software update and rolled it out to all the affected vehicles. Waymo runs more than 1,500 vehicles in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, and Austin, so it’s a pretty big deal.
The recall doesn’t affect vehicles currently out on the road, according to Waymo spokesperson Ethan Teicher. The company has been under a lot of scrutiny lately, especially after Tesla had issues with its self-driving tech and that Cruise vehicle hit a pedestrian in 2023. The NHTSA started looking into Waymo in May 2024 after getting reports of 22 incidents with the fifth-generation software. They said some of the incidents involved crashes with things that a good driver should’ve been able to avoid. The investigation is still ongoing. Back in February 2024, Waymo had to recall 444 vehicles after a couple of minor accidents in Arizona. Even though Waymo vehicles get a lot of attention for their mishaps, data from insurer Swiss Re shows they’re actually safer than human drivers.
Based on Waymo’s data, their driverless vehicles have way fewer crashes with airbag deployments, injuries, and police reports compared to regular cars driving the same distance. Waymo cars use cameras, sensors, and a special laser radar thing called lidar to drive themselves. Teicher said they provide more than 250,000 paid trips a week in some of the toughest driving conditions in the U.S. He added, “Our track record of reducing injuries over millions of fully autonomous miles proves our tech is making the roads safer.” Waymo is part of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, and they put their first driverless car on the road in 2015. They launched their Waymo One ride-hailing service in 2020 and have big plans to expand to Atlanta, Miami, and Washington, D.C. next year.
Not really sure why this matters, but Waymo seems to be doing pretty well even with all these recalls. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like they’re still ahead of the game when it comes to self-driving cars. Let’s hope they get everything sorted out soon so we can all feel safe getting into a car without a driver.
