Final yr, two Waymo robotaxis in Phoenix “made contact” with the same pickup truck that was within the midst of being towed, which prompted the Alphabet subsidiary to difficulty a recall on its autos’ software program. A “recall” on this case meant rolling out a software program replace after investigating the difficulty and figuring out its root trigger.
In a weblog publish, Waymo has revealed that on December 11, 2023, one in every of its robotaxis collided with a backwards-facing pickup truck being towed forward of it. The corporate says the truck was being towed improperly and was angled throughout a middle flip lane and a site visitors lane. Apparently, the tow truck did not pull over after the incident, and one other Waymo car got here into contact with the pickup truck a couple of minutes later. Waymo did not elaborate on what it meant by saying that its robotaxis “made contact” with the pickup truck, nevertheless it did say that the incidents resulted in no accidents and solely minor car injury. The self-driving autos concerned within the collisions weren’t carrying any passenger.
After an investigation, Waymo discovered that its software program had incorrectly predicted the longer term actions of the pickup truck because of “persistent orientation mismatch” between the towed car and the one towing it. The corporate developed and validated a repair for its software program to forestall related incidents sooner or later and began deploying the replace to its fleet on December 20.
Waymo’s rival firm Cruise was involved in a more serious incident final yr, whereby one in every of its robotaxis by chance dragged somebody hit by one other car just a few dozen toes down a San Francisco avenue. California then suspended its license to function within the state, and Cruise finally paused all robotaxi operations, even those with a human driver behind the wheel, as a part of a security overview. In the meantime, it is enterprise as ordinary for Waymo, which just lately announced that it’s going to begin testing driverless autos on highways and freeways in and round Phoenix.
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