Around 3,800 Waymos were recalled by the company after an empty vehicle drove onto a flooded roadway in San Antonio and got swept away, prompting a federal investigation.
As Bloomberg reports, Waymo is voluntarily recalling nearly 3,791 robotaxis after federal regulators opened an investigation into reports that the self-driving vehicles have sometimes entered flooded streets instead of stopping or taking a detour.
The probe follows an incident last month in San Antonio, Texas, in which an unoccupied Waymo vehicle drove into standing water and was swept into a creek, according to CNBC. Additionally, vehicles in Austin were caught on video stalling out after driving onto flooded streets, and similar incidents have been reported in other cities.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the recall affects vehicles using Waymo’s fifth- and sixth-generation automated driving systems, which are designed to slow down — but not necessarily stop — when encountering potentially flooded roadways, as the Chronicle reports. Regulators say this could leave vehicles stranded or cause them to lose control in dangerous conditions.
This is likely an over-compensation for previous generations, which caused some Waymo vehicles to come to complete stops in the middle of traffic over small puddles, as seen in this Reddit video.
The Alphabet-owned company said Tuesday that it has since added restrictions intended to keep vehicles off roads where flash flooding may occur.
Waymo told CNBC Tuesday that its service is temporarily suspended in San Antonio and that it’s “readying operations to resume public rides.” Per the Chronicle, the company said there would be no disruptions to service in the Bay Area, as engineers will run the repair on each vehicle when it returns to the depot.
Waymo now operates in 11 US regions, in addition to San Francisco, including Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin, and Miami, as the company continues expanding amid growing competition in the commercial robotaxi service industry.
The flooding-related recall comes amid two other investigations into Waymo vehicles, as Bloomberg reports. One probe involves a January crash in Santa Monica in which a robotaxi struck a child near a school, while another focuses on reports that Waymo vehicles failed to properly slow or stop for school buses.
As SFist reported in December, the company faced scrutiny locally after widespread power outages in San Francisco left multiple robotaxis stalled in traffic, contributing to gridlock across parts of the city. The company blamed the incidents on an overwhelmed crew of human monitors, as the vehicles were simultaneously all seeking "confirmations" from the control center about how to proceed in intersections without working traffic signals.
In 2024, Waymo recalled its operating software after two self-driving robotaxis hit a truck being towed in Phoenix, Arizona.
Related: Waymos Were Looking for Human Remote 'Confirmations' at Intersections During Blackout, Company Says
Image: Windshield wipers clear rain from the front windshield of a Waymo self-driving car on a rainy day in San Francisco, California, February 19, 2026. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)
