Waymo extends break in four cities as robots continue to drive through flooding

Waymo has now temporarily suspended service in four cities because its robotaxis is struggling to cope with heavy rain and flooded roads, a problem that already prompted the company to issue a cancellation last week.

One of Waymo’s robots was seen driving through a flooded road in Atlanta, Georgia, on Wednesday before getting stuck for about an hour, according to local news reports. The vehicle was recovered and removed from the scene, Waymo told TechCrunch. Waymo says it has temporarily suspended service in the city, as it did in San Antonio, Texas, while it finds a solution.

“Safety is Waymo’s top priority, for our passengers and everyone we travel with on the road. During yesterday’s severe weather in Atlanta, an unoccupied Waymo vehicle encountered a flooded road and stopped,” the company said in a statement.

Waymo also suspended service in Dallas and Houston due to severe weather across Texas this week, the company confirmed to TechCrunch late Thursday. The expansion was first reported by Bloomberg News.

A Waymo spokesperson said the company also temporarily suspended service in Dallas and Houston out of an abundance of caution for the severe weather forecast.

Waymo acknowledged that it had not yet developed a “final solution” to avoid flooded areas when it released its recall software last week. Instead, the company said it sent an update to its fleet that imposes “restrictions on times and places where there is a high risk of encountering a flooded, high-speed road,” according to documents released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

But even those safety measures apparently weren’t enough to stop the Waymo robot from entering an Atlanta intersection. Waymo told TechCrunch on Thursday that the storm in Atlanta produced so much rain that flooding was occurring before the National Weather Service issued a flood warning, watch, or advisory. The company said those warnings are part of a larger signal it relies on to help vehicles deal with bad weather.

“NHTSA is aware of this incident, is in contact with Waymo, and will take appropriate action if necessary,” a spokeswoman for the safety regulator told TechCrunch about the robot that got stuck in Atlanta.

It’s not the first time Waymo has struggled to quickly eliminate problematic behavior with its robotaxis. When people first noticed that Waymo robotaxis were illegally passing and stopping school buses last year, the company sent a fix that was supposed to solve the problem – so that its fleet could continue to illegally stop school buses.

Waymo’s conduct on school buses is among one of two sets of active investigations into the company.

Both NHTSA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are looking into this problem. Waymo has already produced dozens of NHTSA documents, all of which have been redacted to the public. On May 15, NHTSA sent a second document request to Waymo because the company’s initial response “requires that [NHTSA] get more information and information.”

Another investigation from the NHTSA and NTSB involves a January 23 incident in which a Waymo robot hit a child in Santa Monica, California. Waymo said its robot was braking at about six miles per hour before it hit the child and suffered minor injuries.

This story has been updated with more information about Waymo’s use of National Weather Service warnings, and installing new service to Houston and Dallas.