Waymo Robotaxis Have To Take A Break In Atlanta — Can’t Handle Flooding

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Waymo robotaxis are clearly the most advanced in terms of real-world customer service in Western countries. They are now operating at quite high volume in several cities. However, in San Antonio and now also Atlanta, they have been running into a problem. They keep trying to drive through flooded streets.

Waymo paused service in San Antonio previously, and now it’s also done so in Atlanta. A local news outlet got the Waymo on camera for a portion of the one hour or so that it sat there. “According to the company, the vehicle encountered a flooded roadway during what it described as an intense and unexpected period of rainfall across the city,” the news outlet writes. As a Floridian, I know well how fast summer rain can pour down. (And, yes, it’s already summer here.) But no decent driver, including an AI driver, should take their vehicle into a flooded street.

“The spokesperson said the vehicle stopped after entering the flooded area and was later recovered and removed from the scene. No passengers were inside the vehicle at the time, and no injuries were reported,” WBR writes. “A photo of the Waymo driving directly into a massive flood zone was sent into 11Alive by a viewer. The vehicle then stalled out before later being cleared and driven away by a person after the flood waters receded after about an hour.”

Apparently, the speed at which the rain poured down and caused the flooding was part of the issue. Waymo has indicated there were now flash flood warnings, watches or advisories from the National Weather Service before the incident occurred. Additionally, none of its operational safety measures were triggered. It recently rolled out new operational changes to deal with flooding situations like this, but they clearly haven’t cracked the case completely yet, so Waymo is still working on how to avoid this kind of issue.

For now, Waymo is pausing service in Atlanta while crews keep an eye on the weather and monitor roadways, and while the software team works feverishly to find a long-term solution.

I presume Waymo will be able to figure out a solution, but who knows? This is a very sticky issue that is challenging the company more than most. How is a robotaxi supposed to know how flooded a roadway is and whether it’s safe to drive through? If Waymo does figure this out, hopefully we’ll get some information from the company on what it did to overcome the challenge.

Heavy rain always seemed like it would be one of the bigger challenges for robotaxis, but I hadn’t thought much about flooding and how quickly streets can get un-drivable. One has to wonder how Teslas, including Cybertrucks supposedly capable of wading in shallow water, will handle flooding like this with Full Self Driving (Unsupervised).