Waymo, the company that offers driverless taxi services in several major American cities, must recall just over 1,200 of the vehicles it has put into circulation to update their software.
The company also wants to adjust programming to better minimize the risk of collision with chains, barriers and other less common obstacles, this following an investigation in the United States last year concerning certain safety risks that were raised.
The recall affects 1,212 Waymo vehicles running on the company's older, fifth-generation automated driving system software, the company said this week.
Waymo has more than 1,500 vehicles in operation in the cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin.
Waymo said it is aware of 16 collisions with chains, barriers and other obstacles between 2022 and the end of 2024. No injuries resulted, according to a report filed with the American NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), the equivalent of Transport Canada.
The NHTSA opened an investigation into the performance of Waymo's self-driving vehicles in May 2024 after testimonies recounting road behavior contrary to traffic safety regulations by some vehicles.
The agency said that several incidents under investigation “involved collisions with clearly visible objects that a competent driver would be expected to avoid.” The investigation remains open.
Waymo says this issue has been corrected with the sixth-generation autonomous driving software, adding that it deployed the latest version of the software to its entire fleet at the end of December 2024.
"Waymo provides over 250,000 rides every week in some of the most challenging driving environments in the United States. Our track record of reducing injuries over tens of millions of fully autonomous miles driven shows that our technology is making roads safer," the company said.
In February 2024, Waymo recalled 444 vehicles after two minor collisions occurred in short succession in Arizona, explaining that a software error could cause vehicles to inaccurately predict the movement of a towed vehicle.
In June 2024, Waymo recalled more than 670 vehicles after one of them hit a utility pole in Phoenix, Arizona, that May.