Waymo updates 3,800 robotaxis after they 'drive into standing water'

That's a tough problem - distinguishing wet pavement from deep water. Humans make that mistake frequently. Autonomous vehicles should probably be equipped with a water sensor. (We did that in our DARPA Grand Challenge vehicle back in 2005). Then they can enter water very cautiously and see if it's too deep. This may make them too cautious about shallow puddles on roads, though.

Article's current (possibly original), less ambiguous title: "Waymo recalls 3,800 robotaxis after glitch allowed some vehicles to ‘drive into standing water’"

IOW 3,800 Waymo vehicles aren't currently sat spinning their wheels in water.

That's the promise of self-driving cars.

Every time an issue is found, no matter how minor, it's fixed and updated everywhere. From now on, every car of that model (and future models, and related models) will no longer have that problem. Several passes of that improvement cycle, and self-driving cars become safer (and more efficient/comfortable/etc) than human drivers. At least, that's how it's supposed to work.

If we're lucky, this'll help get us better roads. I'm never exactly happy slowing down to 10mph on the freeway because it isn't obvious whether the 100ft long puddle is an inch deep or 2ft, and I can sidestep some of that danger sometimes by proactively choosing safer lanes, but our roads are dangerous and don't handle water correctly.

It's an interesting case of whether it's possible to infer the condition of wading and avoid having to install a sensor specific to a one in a million trips circumstance.

The inference would come from standing water slowing down the vehicle and likely require steering correction, in combination with some machine vision for identifying standing water.

Then there's the advantage of being Google and having hundreds of thousands of people in the same area using Google maps and navigation. Accelerometers in phones can detect crashes pretty reliably. There's a good chance they can reliably detect deceleration from standing water and report the location of the hazard.

How is this only being solved now? Isn’t it a very common thing that happens on roads or what am I missing? At least few times a year I have to go around major puddles, Waymo just speed boats through them? I doubt to believe.

Does anyone with a better understanding about LIDAR vs camera approach to autonomous drivng explain how would Tesla handle such situation ?

Maybe they're secretly developing Waymo submarines..

What is a recall in this case? Is them getting a software update a recall now?

Waymo: *locks doors, chorus to Floods by Pantera starts playing, guns it into the water*

“Wash away maaaaan, take him with the floooood”

Since recall on cars no longer means doing anything to the car's physical location I think the regulator NHSTA should update this term

It just creates alarmist headlines for what's really an over the air update, although "recall" is still currently a regulatory accurate term in the vehicle space

Cars, especially EVs, have many similarities to being gigantic phones. Imagine if a routine software update from Apple was called a "recall", that functionally describes what's happening here

NHTSA should at least distinguish between "omg we have to get these cars off the road and bring them to the shop immediately!" versus "over the air software update"

They are rolling these out in New Orleans soon. Standing water is everywhere, and sometimes you have big hidden potholes. You just need to know the roads. Should be fun.

Go fish

This is ok though because humans drive into flood waters too.

Look, you can't make progress without getting your feet wet and then diving straight into the deep end.

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"recall" = applies software update

LeCun is right.

FFS, can we just go back to talking to each other in person and driving our own vehicles? Where'd the 90s go?

If they are recalled, do the cars drive themselves back to the factory?