Waymo recalls 1,200 self-driving cars because of minor collisions
Waymo is recalling about1,200 vehicles due to a software bug that caused its self-driving cars to collide with certain roadway barriers, according to safety officials.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a Monday announcement that the voluntary recall had already been remedied by late December with a fix to the company's 5th Generation Automated Driving Systems.
Waymo said that while the recall was submitted last week, it doesn't impact any of its vehicles currently on the road. The recall only applies to software released before November, which was updated that same month, and caused minor collisions with chains, gates, and roadway barriers. Nobody was injured in the crashes.
'Waymo (GOOGL) provides more than 250,000 paid trips every week in some of the most challenging driving environments in the U.S.,' a Waymo spokesperson told Quartz. 'We hold ourselves to a high safety standard, and our record of reducing injuries over tens of millions of fully autonomous miles driven shows our technology is making roads safer.'
Waymo currently operates its robotaxis in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin. It is owned by Google's parent company, Alphabet.
Last week, Amazon's robotaxi company Zoox (AMZN) issued a voluntary software recall following a crash in Las Vegas.
Zoox said in a post that it made the decision after an incident where one of its unoccupied robotaxis hit a passenger vehicle. No injuries were reported in the incident and and only minor damage occurred to both vehicles, the company said.
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