Waymo — Multiple locations, USA

Location

Multiple locations, USA — various

Parking lots, driveways, and gated areas across service territories

Description

Waymo issued a voluntary recall of 1,212 vehicles due to a software issue causing collisions with roadside barriers, gates, and chains. The vehicles failed to properly detect or respond to certain types of thin or low-contrast barriers such as parking lot gates, chains, and flexible bollards. Multiple low-speed collisions were reported across Waymo's operating territories. No injuries resulted from these incidents but vehicle and property damage occurred.

Impact

Traffic disruption: minimal

Emergency Response

Resolution: software recall and OTA update to improve barrier detection

Root Cause

perception deficiency

Perception system failed to reliably detect thin, low-contrast, or flexible barriers such as chains, gates, and flexible bollards; these objects fell outside the trained detection model's reliable performance envelope

✅ Confirmed

Systemic Issues

• Thin and low-contrast objects remain a challenging perception edge case
• Parking lot and driveway environments have diverse barrier types
• Pattern of repeated collisions before recall indicates detection gap was systematic
• Largest Waymo recall to date at 1,212 vehicles

Regulatory Action

NHTSA recall. Waymo issued voluntary recall and deployed OTA software update to improve detection of thin barriers, gates, and chains.

Sources

• Waymo recalls 1,200 robotaxis - TechCrunch