Waymos Have Trouble With Floods, Which Is Surprising

InnovationTransportationWaymos Have Trouble With Floods, Which Is SurprisingByBrad Templeton,Senior Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Brad Templeton, who was early at Waymo, covers transportation's futureFollow AuthorMay 23, 2026, 09:00am EDT--:-- / --:--This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.In this photo from May, a Waymo in San Francisco sits on a tow truck, though not from a flooding related breakdown.Brad TempletonThe Waymo robotaxi service has been having a bad week, particularly in dealing with flooded roads. Waymos have driven into flooded streets and gotten stuck. One empty Waymo drive into a flood so severe it washed the car away. Waymo has halted service multiple times in areas with lots of flooding, and issued a “recall” (really just a software update caused by special circumstances) through the NHTSA process about their flood detection with an interim fix. Four cities in Texas, and Atlanta, have faced problems and service shutdowns, even after the recall.This is surprising for two reasons. First of all, what should normally be the great thing about robocars is that if a mistake is discovered, it gets fixed, and after that none of those cars make that mistake again. Some fixes are imperfect though, and some problems can happen for multiple reasons, so even if you fix one reason another one pops up, making it seem from the outside like the same thing has happened again. We don’t know the reason here. Waymo has declined so far to comment on the flooding issues or the recall.The event where the vehicle got washed away is particularly troubling and frightening, because it’s possible that could happen with a passenger on board. Most other cases just involve vehicles getting into too much water, and so far nobody has been hurt beyond wet shoes and pants.This Should Be SolvableThere’s a particular irony for Waymo here. Waymo vehicles are equip...