Waymo Recalls 3,791 Robotaxis After Vehicle Is Swept Into a Creek — OTA Fix, No Dealer Visit
Waymo has filed a voluntary recall with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration covering 3,791 robotaxis — its entire active US fleet — after a software defect allowed vehicles to enter flooded roadways.
The recall, posted to NHTSA’s website on May 12, covers vehicles equipped with Waymo’s fifth and sixth-generation automated driving systems. It traces to a April 20 incident in San Antonio, Texas, where an unoccupied Waymo robotaxi entered a flooded section of road and was swept into Salado Creek. No passengers were aboard. The vehicle was recovered days later.
Waymo says it has already implemented interim constraints — weather-related operational limits and revised maps that restrict access to areas during flash flood conditions — while engineers work on a full software fix. The recall is handled entirely over the air. No vehicles need to visit a service centre.
The Incident Pattern
The San Antonio creek incident was not isolated. An earlier flood-related event occurred in the same city approximately two weeks prior, near McCullough Avenue and Contour Drive. In Austin, multiple videos captured Waymo vehicles driving onto flooded streets and stalling, requiring human drivers to navigate around them. Both cities launched Waymo service in February 2026; both sit in what hydrologists call Flash Flood Alley, the stretch of Texas with the highest frequency of flash flood events in the contiguous US.
Waymo’s characterisation of the failure is specific: “an area of improvement regarding untraversable flooded lanes specific to higher-speed roadways.” The ADS identified the lane, slowed, and then proceeded. It did not stop and reroute. San Antonio service launched eight weeks before the incident; Austin had been running longer, which may explain why Austin produced more videos before the systemic issue surfaced.
OTA Recalls as the New Norm
The recall mechanism is as notable as the failure. Traditional automotive recalls require owners or operators to bring vehicles to a dealership for inspection and repair. For robotaxi fleets operated commercially without individual owners, that model makes no sense. Waymo has used voluntary OTA recalls twice before: once for school bus yielding failures in Austin and Atlanta in late 2025, and once for a smaller operational constraint issue. Completion rates on those recalls approached 100%, because Waymo pushes the update centrally to its own managed fleet.
NHTSA accepted the voluntary recall framework both times. The flood recall is the largest by vehicle count.
This pattern — AV failure, NHTSA probe, voluntary OTA recall within weeks, high completion rate — is becoming a defined regulatory loop. California ended robotaxi citation immunity in April 2026, shifting penalties for AV infractions to the manufacturer. The NHTSA voluntary recall preserves Waymo’s standing as a cooperative actor while NHTSA’s probe runs.
Service Status
Waymo currently operates commercial robotaxi service in 11 US markets including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin, and Miami, running more than 500,000 trips per week. San Antonio passenger service remains suspended. Autonomous (non-passenger) vehicle movement in San Antonio resumed, but the company has not given a timeline for restoring public rides.
San Antonio service was at seven weeks old when it paused. It is now Waymo’s longest suspension since the company began commercial operations.