Break on highways Waymo robotaxi gets stuck in high water - operation stopped
Driverless robotaxis from Waymo master even complex road traffic. But as it turns out, their software has difficulty recognizing the depth of the water on flooded roads.
22.05.2026, 06:04
dpa
Waymo has suspended its robotaxi service in two US cities after two of its self-driving cars got stuck on flooded roads following heavy rainfall. In Atlanta, Georgia, and San Antonio, Texas, the cars from Google's sister company are not due to set off again until road conditions improve.
Waymo had already tried to minimize the problems last week with a software update for around 3800 vehicles. But more work still needs to be done on this. On Wednesday, a Waymo robotaxi in Atlanta drove into a flooded section of road without passengers on board and got stuck in the water.
Not the first problem with a flooded road
Something similar happened in San Antonio in April. Waymo monitors weather warnings, among other things, to assess road conditions. The car in Atlanta got stuck before there was a weather warning.
Waymo currently has around 500,000 passenger journeys per month and wants to quickly expand the service to other cities. Initially, the cars were on the road in sunny areas such as Phoenix in Arizona and San Francisco. However, with the expansion in recent years, regions with more complex weather conditions have also been added.
Break on highways
At the same time, Waymo paused operations on freeways in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Miami, which were only launched at the end of 2025. The company wants to improve the software's behavior on some types of roadworks. After that, freeway driving will resume "soon".
