A Waymo self-driving taxi cruises up Pine Street in San Francisco this summer.
Phoenix, Arizona – Alphabet’s self-driving car division, Waymo, has issued a recall of 1,212 autonomous vehicles this week following a software glitch that increased the risk of crashing into stationary objects such as chains, gates, and roadway barriers.
The recall was made public through a report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which cited at least 16 collisions involving Waymo vehicles equipped with its 5th Generation Automated Driving System between 2022 and 2024. Although no injuries have been reported, the pattern of incidents raised enough concern for regulators to take action.
Waymo said it had already addressed the issue by rolling out a software fix across its fleet by December 2024, months before announcing the recall. In a statement to The Post, a Waymo spokesperson defended the company’s safety record:
“Waymo provides more than 250,000 paid trips every week in some of the most challenging driving environments in the US. 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.”
The recall follows an ongoing federal investigation launched by the NHTSA in May 2024. That probe was triggered by reports of Waymo robotaxis failing to avoid obvious obstacles—incidents regulators said a “competent human driver would be expected to avoid.” At the time, at least seven minor collisions involving such lapses were identified.
Waymo claims it was already developing the software update when the NHTSA initiated its investigation. Nonetheless, the investigation remains open.
This marks Waymo’s third major recall in less than a year. In February, the company pulled 444 self-driving vehicles after two robotaxis crashed into the same towed pickup truck—a result of flawed software that failed to account for towed vehicles’ movement. In June, Waymo recalled nearly 700 vehicles after one struck a wooden telephone pole in Phoenix, Arizona, though no injuries occurred.
Waymo, which operates over 1,500 robotaxis across cities including San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles, says it remains committed to collaborating with regulators and improving the safety of its autonomous fleet.
