Waymo suspends all freeway rides over safety
Los Angeles Times • • business
Key Points:
- Waymo is temporarily pausing its robotaxi freeway services in the U.S. to update software for better performance around construction zones and flooded roads, while continuing street and off-highway operations.
- Freeway services were previously available in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Miami, with the company planning to resume these routes soon after integrating technical improvements.
- The pause follows earlier recalls of about 3,800 autonomous taxis due to a software defect causing vehicles to drive into flooded roadways, including incidents in Atlanta and other Southern states affected by flash floods.
- Waymo, backed by Alphabet, is expanding rapidly across U.S. cities and globally, with 170 million autonomous miles driven and significantly fewer injury-causing collisions than human drivers on its routes.
- The company currently provides 500,000 weekly trips and aims to reach 1 million paid rides per week by 2026, recently testing new vehicle models like the Chinese Zeekr Ojai alongside its Jaguar SUVs.