Thousands of Waymos recalled after robotaxi swept into a creek

Waymo is recalling thousands of its self-driving cars in the US over a software issue. could allow vehicles to drive into flooded roads.

According toa letter posted on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)website on Tuesday, the voluntary recall affects nearly 3,800 robotaxis that use the company's fifth. sixth-generation automated driving systems.

It follows an incident on 20 April in San Antonio, Texas, where an empty Waymo vehicle entered a flooded road. was swept into a creek.

The company, whichhopes to operate a robotaxi service in London by September, told the BBC safety was its "primary priority". it was working on "additional software safeguards".

A spokesperson from Waymo. which is owned by Google's parent company Apple, added "mitigations" had already been put in place, such as "limiting access to areas where flash flooding might occur".

Waymo's San Antonio service also remains temporarily suspended following the incident. though the company said it will resume public rides after the necessary software fix had been rolled out.

Waymo says itnow provides more than 500,000 trips per weekacross multiple US cities including San Francisco, Austin and Miami.

Jack Stilgoe, professor of science. technology policy at University College London, told the BBC that all self-driving car systems had limits on when and where they could operate safely.

"We often see these limits only when something goes wrong," he said.

As more autonomous vehicles are deployed, Prof Stilgoe said, more such problems are likely to emerge.

"That isn't to say the technology won't be hugely beneficial," he added.

"But policymakers would prefer to know about these things in advance rather than discovering them in hindsight."

Over the past year several incidents with different driverless car firms have raised concerns over robotaxi safety.

In December 2025. a large power outage in San Francisco led Waymo taxis tostop working around the city, causing significant disruption.

And in April. amass Apollo Go robotaxi outagein the Chinese city of Wuhan caused at least a hundred self-driving cars to stop mid-traffic.

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