SAN FRANCISCO, June 24 (San Francisco News Online) — Waymo has filed a voluntary recall of 3,871 vehicles equipped with its 5th Generation Automated Driving System after federal regulators said the software may allow a vehicle to enter a closed freeway construction zone and keep driving at speed.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the condition increases the risk of a crash. Waymo said the remedy is still being developed, and that it has restricted freeway driving in the meantime.
The recall, listed by NHTSA as Campaign Number 26E035000, covers a national fleet of vehicles in the United States. The filing is notable in San Francisco because some of the incidents that prompted the recall were reported in the San Francisco Bay Area, where Waymo operates robotaxi service on local roads and freeways.
Waymo said it will update the automated driving software so the vehicles can better detect construction zones and avoid entering them, at no charge to owners or operators. The company said the change is intended to improve performance around freeway construction sites.
In a statement quoted by CNBC, Waymo said it had identified an area for improvement near freeway construction zones. The company said it voluntarily limited freeway operations while making those changes, informed state and federal regulators, and filed the voluntary software recall with NHTSA.
The recall centers on a specific risk tied to freeway construction setups. According to the federal filing, the software may fail to recognize that a freeway lane or ramp has been closed, allowing the vehicle to continue into an active work area.
Waymo has not said it is ending service. Instead, it said it continues to serve passengers on surface streets across the cities where it operates while the freeway-related software fix is being prepared.
The filing says the company reviewed a series of incidents before deciding to recall the vehicles. Those incidents included one in Phoenix on April 11, five more in Phoenix on April 19, and seven in the San Francisco Bay Area on May 18, when vehicles reportedly entered active freeway construction lanes by driving between cones.
Fox News, citing the NHTSA filing, reported that the Phoenix incidents involved vehicles driving past ramp closure signs into pre-planned freeway construction zones. The same filing said the San Francisco Bay Area incidents involved Waymo vehicles entering active construction lanes.
Waymo said no collisions or injuries were reported in the incidents reviewed. That detail also was included in Fox News’ summary of the filing.
The recall adds another layer of scrutiny to a service that has expanded by using cameras, radar, lidar, and software to navigate without a human driver behind the wheel. For riders in the Bay Area, the change is likely to be felt less as a formal recall notice and more as a temporary shift in where the vehicles are allowed to operate.
Waymo’s decision to restrict freeway travel suggests the company is treating the issue as an operational safety problem rather than waiting for a software update to be completed. The federal filing says the remedy remains under development, which means the work is still in the implementation stage.
NHTSA’s role in the case is limited to overseeing the recall process and publishing the manufacturer report. The agency’s filing does not describe any crash investigations, public hearing, or enforcement action tied to the recall itself.
The company’s recall covers 5th Generation ADS-equipped vehicles, which are part of Waymo’s current self-driving system. Waymo said the software update will be provided free of charge once it is available.
The filing does not show that the problem is limited to one city or one roadway. Instead, it points to incidents in Arizona and California, with the San Francisco Bay Area playing a central role in the reported sequence of events.
That local connection matters for Bay Area transportation because freeway construction zones are common on major commuter routes, and robotaxis rely on software to interpret traffic control devices, cones, barriers and lane shifts in real time. In this case, the software apparently did not always recognize that a lane or ramp had been closed.
Waymo’s recall comes as the company continues operating a growing robotaxi service under federal safety oversight. The recall process now moves the issue from internal review into a formal safety action tracked by NHTSA.
The filing lists the manufacturer report date as June 12. CNBC reported on June 18 that Waymo had told regulators it was voluntarily limiting freeway operations while it worked on the improvement. Fox News later cited the recall and its campaign number in reporting on the federal filing.
The recall appears to be limited to the software behavior described in the filing. The documents reviewed do not show that the company identified a hardware defect, and they do not show any immediate requirement for owners or riders to take action beyond the operational changes Waymo has already put in place.
For San Francisco riders, the practical result is that Waymo is keeping its service on surface streets while pausing or narrowing freeway travel. The company said that approach is temporary and tied to the software update under development.
NHTSA’s recall notice says Waymo will notify affected parties as the remedy becomes available. Until then, the company says its fleet will continue to operate with the freeway restriction in place.
