Waymo Recalls 3,871 Robotaxis After Cars Drove Into Active Construction Zones

Waymo has filed a voluntary recall affecting 3,871 of its robotaxis after its autonomous driving software repeatedly drove vehicles into closed freeway construction zones — sometimes at speed — across Phoenix and San Francisco. The recall, filed with NHTSA on June 17, represents the company's sixth software recall since February 2024, and comes at a difficult moment: Waymo is in the middle of its most ambitious expansion push ever, targeting over 20 new cities globally in 2026. We covered that rollout in Waymo Expands Robotaxi Service to Five New Cities in 2026.

All affected vehicles run Waymo's fifth-generation Automated Driving System and are Jaguar I-Pace units manufactured between March 2022 and May 2026. Freeway operations have been suspended for the affected fleet while a software patch is developed and validated.

What Happened

The incidents began on April 11, when a Waymo vehicle entered an active freeway construction zone in Phoenix. Five more incidents followed on April 19, also in Phoenix, with the vehicles failing to recognize ramp-closure signs and driving past them into pre-planned work areas. Waymo's Field Safety Committee convened on April 20 and immediately restricted Phoenix freeway operations while it investigated.

Then, on May 18, the problem resurfaced in San Francisco. Seven Waymo vehicles drove between lane-closure cones on a Bay Area freeway. This time, the failure mode was slightly different: rather than missing the closure signs entirely, the vehicles appeared to detect the construction zone but deprioritized it — the software was giving higher priority to avoiding other freeway hazards (other vehicles, road debris) and effectively overrode the construction zone recognition.

Thirteen total incidents were recorded before Waymo's safety board formally initiated the recall on June 8.

One San Francisco rider, Elliot Slade, described his experience on Highway 101 in chilling detail: his Waymo drove directly through construction cones and then accelerated into an active work zone despite visible signs, lights, and cones. "There were signs. There were lights. There were cones. And it went through the cones and then sped up straight away," Slade said. He and his fiancée shouted at the vehicle to stop before it eventually exited onto a residential street. "In that moment it's like, oh this technology is not ready."

Why This Happened: A Software Prioritization Problem

The technical explanation matters, because it reveals something important about how these systems fail.

Waymo's fifth-generation system uses an impressive sensor array: four lidar units, six high-dynamic-range cameras (including a front-facing unit with 500-metre visibility), and an imaging radar array. By all accounts, the sensors were not blind to the construction zones. Waymo's own NHTSA filings indicate the vehicles detected enough about their environment to recognize the presence of other freeway hazards — meaning the sensors were working.

The failure was in the software's decision-making layer. The system was designed to prioritize avoiding active hazards like other vehicles and road debris. When those hazards were present simultaneously with construction zone indicators, the software deprioritized the construction closure — and kept driving.

This is a prioritization bug, not a sensor failure. And it is arguably more concerning for that reason: the system saw the situation correctly but made the wrong call about which threat to act on.

The fix Waymo is developing focuses on improving construction zone detection, improving how the system behaves once a zone is detected, and adding new operational protocols. It will be delivered as an over-the-air software update.

Context: This Is Waymo's Sixth Software Recall

It is worth putting this recall in context, because media coverage sometimes treats each incident as isolated.

This is Waymo's sixth software recall since February 2024. The most recent prior recall, just five weeks ago in May, covered 3,791 vehicles after a Waymo in San Antonio drove into rushing floodwater and was swept into a creek. A software patch was deployed — and then failed to prevent a second flooding incident in Atlanta less than two weeks later.

Earlier recalls addressed low-speed collisions with stationary objects like parking gates and telephone poles, a collision with a towed vehicle, and a failure to stop for school buses in December 2025.

Notably, the sixth-generation Waymo Driver — which launched commercially in February 2026 with an updated sensor suite — is not affected by this recall. All 3,871 recalled vehicles run the older fifth-generation system.

What This Means for Riders

If you use Waymo in any of its 11 US cities, the immediate practical impact is straightforward: freeway rides are suspended on affected vehicles until the software patch is validated and deployed. Waymo has confirmed it continues to operate normally on surface streets in all cities.

This matters more in some cities than others. Waymo only introduced freeway capability to US markets in November 2025, and freeway trips represent a meaningful share of longer rides in cities like Phoenix and the Bay Area. The suspension is indefinite pending the software fix.

If you're a Waymo rider and your usual route involves a freeway stretch, expect the app to route you via surface streets — adding time to some journeys — until the patch is deployed. If you're new to driverless rides in general, our passenger guide to how a robotaxi works explains what to expect.

The Bigger Picture: Trust Is the Real Product

The construction zone recall cuts to the heart of what robotaxi companies are actually selling. The technology pitch is clear: autonomous vehicles make fewer mistakes than human drivers, and the data broadly supports this across millions of miles. But the trust pitch is more fragile, and incidents like this one — amplified by Elliot Slade's account going viral — can undo months of carefully built public confidence.

Human drivers also struggle with construction zones. They miss signs, follow other cars through closed lanes, and make bad prioritization calls under pressure. But when a human driver does it, the response is different from when a driverless car does it — because the expectation is different. No one is in that car to take responsibility, and no one can explain why it happened in real time.

Waymo's voluntary disclosure approach — filing recalls proactively rather than waiting for NHTSA to demand them — is worth noting. The company has been more transparent about its incidents than most. But transparency and reliability are different things, and six software recalls in 16 months is a pattern regulators and the public are right to scrutinize.

For a broader comparison of how Waymo and Tesla stack up, see our Tesla Robotaxi vs. Waymo head-to-head.

What Happens Next

Waymo's stated plan is to develop and validate an over-the-air software patch, then restore freeway operations across affected fleets. No timeline has been given.

The sixth-generation fleet — not affected by this recall — continues to operate normally, and Waymo's expansion plans formally remain on track. The company is still targeting 1 million weekly rides by year-end, still building toward its London and Tokyo launches, and still operating in 11 US cities on surface streets.

But the pressure is real. Sweden's transport authority has already formally opposed EU-wide approval of Tesla FSD over a speed-limit compliance issue, in a vote scheduled for June 30. The broader regulatory environment for autonomous vehicles is watching every incident closely. Waymo's freeway recall, on top of the May flooding recall and its aftermath, gives regulators genuine reason to move carefully. For context on European rules, read our 2026 legal guide to self-driving cars in Europe and the EU Autonomous Vehicle Act.

For riders, the right response is neither panic nor dismissal. Waymo's surface-street record remains genuinely strong. Freeways, it turns out, are a different problem — and the company knows it.

*Related: Tesla Robotaxi vs. Waymo: An Honest Head-to-Head Comparison in 2026 · How Does a Robotaxi Work? Everything You Need to Know as a Passenger · Is Tesla FSD Worth It in 2026? An Honest Review*