CNN
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Waymo issued a recall for its 672 driverless vehicles to make them much less more likely to drive into phone poles.
The recall follows a Might 21 accident in Phoenix, Arizona, wherein a Waymo driverless automotive hit a phone pole that was put in within the roadway in an alley. The automobile was pulling over to choose up a passenger when it struck the pole at low pace, in accordance with Waymo. Whereas the automotive was severely broken, nobody was harm, in accordance with paperwork Waymo filed with the Nationwide Freeway Visitors Security Administration.
The recall applies solely to the fleet of modified Jaguar I-Tempo SUVs Waymo owns and operates itself. The recall includes a software program replace on all 672 of the automobiles. The recall was first reported by The Verge.
“We’ve already deployed mapping and software program updates throughout our whole fleet, and this doesn’t impression our present operations,” a Waymo spokesperson mentioned in an electronic mail.
In paperwork filed with the Nationwide Freeway Visitors Administration, Waymo described the difficulty is as an “[i]nsufficient potential to keep away from pole or pole-like everlasting objects throughout the drivable floor [which] might lead to an elevated danger of a collision.”
This grew to become a problem in circumstances the place there wasn’t a curb or clear street shoulder – akin to in an alleyway the place the street floor reaches from buildings on one aspect to buildings on the opposite – and there have been poles put in inside that roadway. In that case, the automobile may not have acknowledged the precise diploma of hazard a pole represented.
To right the issue, Waymo up to date the software program for its driverless automobiles to make them extra more likely to keep away from issues that look like poles within the street and, additionally, by enhancing their maps to higher outline the sides of roads, even the place they may not be clear.
Waymo is the autonomous automobile subsidiary of Alphabet, the dad or mum firm of Google. It at the moment affords driverless taxi rides in Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Francisco.