Waymo updates driverless taxi technology after crash

A SELF-DRIVING car business owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet has been forced to update its software for the first time after two of its vehicles hit a pickup truck.

Waymo has issued a recall of its driverless taxi technology after two of its vehicles hit the same truck that was in the process of being towed away in Arizona.

It happened on Dec 11 when a tow truck was pulling a pickup, which was facing backwards and angling across two lanes. A first Waymo car hit the vehicle but the pickup driver did not stop, before another Waymo car crashed into the same vehicle a few minutes later.

The driverless cars had no passengers and the crashes resulted in “minor vehicle damage” and no injuries.

Mauricio Peña, Waymo’s chief safety officer, said the unusual situation meant the software incorrectly predicted the vehicle’s movement.

He said: “We determined that due to the persistent orientation mismatch of the towed pickup truck and tow truck combination, the Waymo Autonomous

Vehicle incorrectly predicted the future motion of the towed vehicle.” Waymo has reported the issue voluntarily to US transport regulators and continued to offer rides after the update.

The crashes come amid mounting tensions in the US over the expansion of driverless taxi services, hailed over a smartphone app.

Residents in areas where self-driving cars have been rolled out have grown frustrated at the cars making sometimes bizarre driving decisions, which can cause traffic jams. Others object to having their cities used as a testing ground for the new technology.

Cruise, the driverless car company owned by General Motors, suspended all its robo taxi services in October after a woman was trapped under one of its cars. She was hit by another car, which flung her into the path of a driverless taxi, which then dragged her further under its wheels, before coming to a stop on top of the woman.

Some locals in San Francisco have taken to disrupting driverless cars by planting traffic cones on them, which confuses the vehicle’s sensors.

On Saturday, a Waymo car was set on fire in the city’s Chinatown district.