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Waymo issued a recall after two robotaxis crashed into the same pickup truck

Last year, two Waymo robotaxis in Phoenix "made contact" with the same pickup truck that was in the midst of being towed, which prompted the Alphabet subsidiary to issue a recall on its vehicles' software. A "recall" in this case meant rolling out a software update after investigating the issue and determining its root cause.

In a blog post, Waymo has revealed that on December 11, 2023, one of its robotaxis collided with a backwards-facing pickup truck being towed ahead of it. The company says the truck was being towed improperly and was angled across a center turn lane and a traffic lane. Apparently, the tow truck didn't pull over after the incident, and another Waymo vehicle came into contact with the pickup truck a few minutes later. Waymo didn't elaborate on what it meant by saying that its robotaxis "made contact" with the pickup truck, but it did say that the incidents resulted in no injuries and only minor vehicle damage. The self-driving vehicles involved in the collisions weren't carrying any passenger.

After an investigation, Waymo found that its software had incorrectly predicted the future movements of the pickup truck due to "persistent orientation mismatch" between the towed vehicle and the one towing it. The company developed and validated a fix for its software to prevent similar incidents in the future and started deploying the update to its fleet on December 20.

Blackmist ,

This is our future isn't it? This is it. Spending our days wondering if we're going to be mown down by a clumsy Johnnycab because it was fractionally cheaper than paying somebody to drive.

Argonne ,

I'd take my chances with that rather than all the crazies out in the road now

cm0002 ,

Fr, I'd still trust a self driving vehicle over a human driver any day of the week.

Humans are terrible drivers, this could have easily been just another person driving distracted or something and then we wouldn't even know about it because it wouldn't be news worthy.

SloppyPuppy ,

At least they are consistent

CosmicCleric , (edited )
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

Developers are not testing all of the edge cases properly.

Don't assume a vehicle was under its own power, as like in this case, as it could be towed, so the towing vehicles parameter should be considered.

Check those tires! Make sure they are all on the ground.

Mango ,

It was in an orientation our devs didn't account for and we don't want liability.

"Towed improperly"

deafboy ,
@deafboy@lemmy.world avatar

"made contact" "towed improperly". What a pathetic excuse. Wasn't the entire point of self driving cars the ability to deal with unpredictable situations? The ones that happen all the time every day?

Considering the driving habits differ from town to town, the current approaches do not seem to be viable for the long term anyway.

Argonne ,

It's as if they are still in testing. This is many years away from being safe, but it will happen

Meowoem ,

It's a rare edge case that slipped through because the circumstances to cause it are obscure, from the description it was a minor bump and the software was updated to try and ensure it doesn't happen again - and it probably won't.

Testing for things like this is difficult but looking at the numbers from these projects testing is going incredibly well and we're likely to see moves towards legal acceptance soon

bassad ,

Waymo is going full kamikaze drone on Pick-up, next step will be SUV ?

Maybe this is a solution for oversized vehicules

indomara ,

I still don't understand how these are allowed. One is not allowed to let a Tesla drive without being 100% in control and ready to take the wheel at all times, but these cars are allowed to drive around autonomously?

If I am driving my car, and I hit a pedestrian, they have legal recourse against me. What happens when it was an AI or a company or a car?

Oka ,

The company is at fault. I don't think there's laws currently in place that say a vehicle has to be manned on the street, just that it uses the correct signals and responds correctly to traffic, but I may be wrong. It may also be local laws.

kava ,

You have legal recourse against the owner of the car, presumably the company that is profiting from the taxi service.

You see these all the time in San Francisco. I'd imagine the vast majority of the time, there are no issues. It's just going to be big headlines whenever some accident does happen.

Nobody seems to care about the nearly 50,000 people dying every year from human-caused car accidents

CosmicCleric ,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

Nobody seems to care about the nearly 50,000 people dying every year from human-caused car accidents

I would actually wager that's not true, it's just that the people we elect tend to favor the corporations and look after their interests moreso than the people who elected them, so we end up being powerless to do anything about it.

kava , (edited )

sure, but why do these accidents caused by AI drivers get on the news consistently and yet we rarely see news about human-caused accidents? it's because news reports what is most interesting - not exactly accurate or representative of the real problems of the country

ShepherdPie ,

Yeah same reason why a single EV fire is national news but an ICE fire is just an unnoteworthy, everyday occurrence.

I_Fart_Glitter ,

And they wonder why we set them on fire...

rsuri ,

In a blog post, Waymo has revealed that on December 11, 2023, one of its robotaxis collided with a backwards-facing pickup truck being towed ahead of it. The company says the truck was being towed improperly and was angled across a center turn lane and a traffic lane.

See? Waymo robotaxis don't just take you where you need to go, they also dispense swift road justice.

butterflyattack ,

I'm cool with that. Maybe they can do tailgaters next.

CosmicCleric ,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

they also dispense swift road justice.

They should launch shurikens out the front like a James Bond vehicle.

Sculptor9157 ,

Maybe it was a cybertruck and the super stealth design made it's signature very small.

EdibleFriend ,
@EdibleFriend@lemmy.world avatar

Do we have a fuck you in particular group yet?

baseless_discourse ,

!fuckyouinparticular and !fuckyouinpaticular

EdibleFriend ,
@EdibleFriend@lemmy.world avatar

yay

dog_ ,

🚘🔥

Aatube ,
@Aatube@kbin.social avatar

Why is an update called a recall?

Chozo ,
@Chozo@kbin.social avatar

The fleet of cars is summoned back to the HQ to have the update installed, so it causes a temporary service shutdown until cars are able to start leaving the garage with the new software. They can't do major updates over the air due to the file size; pushing out a mutli-gigabyte update to a few hundred cars at once isn't great on the cellular network.

Jakeroxs ,

Actually there have been several Tesla "recalls" that were just simply OTA updates.

MNByChoice ,

They often are. Many recalls for other manufacturers are similar. They don't actually buy back the cars and crush them.

Kbobabob ,

What typically happens when a recall is issued for other vehicles? Don't they either remove and replace the bad part or add extra parts to fix the issue?

How is removing bad code and replacing it with good code or just adding extra code to fix the issue any different?

Do you want to physically go somewhere?

filcuk ,

Kinda, as the word implies. If it's a software update, call it that; the car's not going back to the shop/manufacturer.

Kbobabob ,

It sounds like location is important for some reason.

Jakeroxs , (edited )

Here's an example of why I don't like that they're called recalls when it's just a system update, if you have a recall on a food item, is there some way to fix it aside from taking it back (to be replaced) or throwing it away?

When there's a security patch released on your phone, do we call it a recall on the phone? Or is that reserved for when there a major hardware defect (like the Samsung Note fiasco)

Kbobabob ,

I think the difference in the case you mentioned is that with a car they use recall because it could be dangerous to keep using it as is.

Jakeroxs ,

Fair, it just seems like there should maybe be a new word for this era where an OTA update is all that's needed.

ShepherdPie ,

What if you consider its the software/firmware getting recalled and not the vehicle itself? Then it's all perfectly cromulent.

twack ,

Because Tesla was fixing significant safety issues without reporting it to the NHTSA in a way that they could track the problems and source of the issue. The two of them got into a pissing match, and the result is that now all OTA's are recalls. After this, the media realized that "recall" generates more views than "OTA", and here we are.

Dlayknee ,

I think it's slightly more nuanced - not all OTAs are recalls, and not all recalls are OTAs (for Tesla). Depending on the issue (for Teslas), the solution may be pushed via an OTA in which case they "issue a recall" with a software update. They're actually going through this right now. For some other issues though, it's a hardware problem that an OTA won't fix so they issue a recall to repair the problem (ex: when the wiring harness for their cameras was fraying the cables).

This is 100% from the NHTSA shenanigans, though.

nxdefiant ,

https://sfstandard.com/2023/10/17/tech-layoffs-waymo-san-francisco-robotaxi/

I bet they were all QA.

cestvrai ,

Hmm, so it’s only designed to handle expected scenarios?

That’s not how driving works… at all. 😐

wahming ,

Face it, that's actually better than many drivers can do

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