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April 11, 2025 – Waymo, the autonomous driving subsidiary of Alphabet, has voluntarily “recalled” 4,000 of its robotaxis following a series of incidents in which the vehicles drove through active construction zones without stopping, sometimes narrowly missing workers and equipment. The unusual move, disclosed in a filing with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), marks the company’s largest software-driven recall to date. Notably, not a single vehicle was physically removed from service; instead, the fix was deployed over-the-air (OTA) to all affected robotaxis operating in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles.
Between January and March 2025, Waymo’s self-driving Jaguar I-Pace vehicles were observed failing to alter their behavior when approaching lane closures, orange cones, or temporary signage typical of construction zones. In several cases, the robotaxis continued at normal speed through areas where human drivers would have slowed or stopped, according to internal reports reviewed by Reuters. At least five incidents involved workers on foot, though no injuries were reported. Waymo characterized the issue as a “boundary condition in the perception system” that caused the software to classify certain construction zone configurations as “clear driving paths” rather than obstacles.
The company triggered the recall after a routine safety review flagged a pattern of “near-misses” in its own telemetry data. Waymo states that the OTA update, issued on April 2, 2025, modifies the vehicle’s path-planning algorithm to give higher weight to construction zone cues, even when they deviate from standard map data. “We identified a gap in how our system interprets temporary road layouts,” a Waymo spokesperson said. “The update ensures the vehicle will stop or yield when it detects any ambiguity near construction zones, regardless of the mapped route.”
The decision to keep all 4,000 robotaxis in operation during the recall period has drawn scrutiny. Unlike a traditional automotive recall that requires owners to bring vehicles to a dealership, NHTSA allows OTA recalls for software fixes, but the agency typically expects the defect to be remedied “immediately” or “within a reasonable time.” Waymo chose to deploy the update gradually over a week, meaning for several days, robotaxis with the unpatched software were still on public roads. When asked why the company didn’t remotely disable the vehicles, the spokesperson said: “The risk was not imminent. The issue only manifests under very specific construction zone configurations, and our monitoring showed no actual collisions. We prioritized continuous service while rolling out the fix.”
This approach echoes Tesla’s OTA recall strategy, but Tesla’s recalls often involve minor issues like font size on warning lights. Waymo’s case is different: the defect directly relates to collision avoidance and worker safety. NHTSA, which has not commented publicly, is likely reviewing whether Waymo’s timeline for the update was adequate. Safety advocates argue that any known defect with potential to hit pedestrians should trigger an immediate pause in operations. “If a human driver had a known pattern of blowing through construction zones, you’d pull their license,” said Dr. Lisa Chen, a transportation safety expert at Stanford. “An OTA fix is convenient, but the public deserves to know that the company’s first priority is safety, not uptime.”
This is not the first time a robotaxi operator has used an OTA recall to address a safety-critical bug. In 2023, Cruise recalled 950 vehicles after a pedestrian was dragged under a vehicle; those were physically grounded. In 2024, Zoox issued an OTA recall for 100 vehicles over a steering issue. Waymo’s recall of 4,000 vehicles – the largest autonomous fleet to date – highlights the scalability challenge. The company claims it has a “safety case” for each vehicle, but critics note that the recall was voluntary and self-reported, raising questions about whether the public would have ever known if not for the NHTSA filing.
Waymo’s transparency is notable compared to the industry average. The recall filing includes detailed technical descriptions of the root cause: a “cone versus lane marker” classification error that led the vehicle to treat rows of orange cones as “dashed lane lines.” The fix adds a dedicated neural network layer for temporary traffic control devices. Waymo also shared the information with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), which regulates robotaxi operations in San Francisco. A CPUC spokesperson said the agency is reviewing the recall and has not yet determined whether any enforcement action is warranted.
