Two driverless cars crash into the same truck, prompting first Waymo recall

Waymo’s first robotaxi recall comes amid backlash against the technology

Robotaxi Expansion (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

The driverless car division of Google’s parent company Alphabet has issued its first ever recall for its robotaxi fleet.

The recall comes after two Waymo vehicles crashed into the same truck on the same day last year, in what the company described as a “rare scenario”.

Waymo said the decision to voluntarily file a recall report followed an internal investigation and a consultation with the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

On 11 December last year, a Waymo taxi crashed into a backwards-facing pickup truck being towed in front of it in Phoenix, Arizona. A few minutes later, a different Waymo vehicle made contact with the same pickup, which the company claims was being towed improperly.

The towed truck was “persistently angled across a centre turn lane and a traffic lane”, which caused the driverless car to “incorrectly predict the future motion of the towed vehicle”.

There were no passengers in the robotaxis at the time, and no injuries were reported from the other driver.

“This voluntary recall reflects how seriously we take our responsibility to safely deploy our technology and to transparently communicate with the public,” Mauricio Peña, Waymo’s chief safety officer, wrote in a blog post on Tuesday.

“As we serve more riders in more cities, we will continue our safety first approach, working to earn trust and foster transparent communication with our riders, community members, regulators, and policymakers.”

Phoenix was one of the first cities in the US to permit fully driverless taxi services, alongside San Francisco, with both cities experiencing pushback from local residents.

Last weekend, a crowd in San Francisco destroyed a Waymo taxi by smashing its windows, placing fireworks inside and torching it.

Those resistant to their introduction on public roads include city officials, who claim they cause traffic and block emergency vehicles, and taxi driver unions, who say they will cost human workers their jobs.

There is also the fear of accidents, with California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) registering more than 130 autonomous vehicle collision reports in the state in 2023.