Waymo customers reported that freeway service disappeared, causing trips that normally used freeways to take longer via local roads. Waymo confirmed it suspended freeway driving across all US markets because of concerns about construction zones, while local-road driving remained available. Waymo also paused service in Atlanta, Georgia, and San Antonio, Texas, due to lingering issues related to flooded roads. The pauses follow earlier incidents in Texas where robotaxis were seen driving through flooded roads at elevated speeds, leading to a software recall for the entire fleet. The company is expanding rapidly toward a goal of one million paid rides per week and preparing to deploy a new Zeekr-built Ojai electric van with sixth-generation autonomous driving software.
"On Thursday, Waymo customers opened up the app and noticed something unusual: no more freeway service. Trips that would normally take a few minutes on the freeway were suddenly projected to last much longer via local roads. The company later confirmed that it had suspended freeway driving across all of its US markets over concerns about construction zones. It had also paused service in Atlanta, Ga., and San Antonio, Tx., over lingering issues regarding flooded roads."
"The decision to suspend freeway driving was made over concerns about construction zones, a Waymo spokesperson told Reuters, adding that local road driving remains unaffected. The spokesperson didn't clarify what kinds of problems Waymo's vehicles were having with construction zones. Highway trips are important because they help reduce trip times and open up financially important routes, like to and from airports."
"The news comes after several of the company's robotaxis were spotted driving through flooded roads at elevated speeds in Texas, forcing Waymo to issue a software recall for its entire fleet. The suspensions come as the Alphabet-owned company has sped aggressively into new markets with the goal of reaching 1 million paid rides a week. (It's currently doing about 500,000 rides a week.)"
"Waymo has framed highway driving as a crucial ability as it seeks to scale its business and compete more aggressively with human-powered rideshare services like Uber and Lyft. At present, Waymo's freeway trips were only available in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Miami. It's the latest in a string of bad headlines for the robotaxi company, which despite its incredible progress in reducing traffic crashes and injuries, still suffers from frequent edge-case"
Read at The Verge
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]