Waymo suspends freeway rides, pauses operations in Atlanta and Dallas

Freeway trips on Waymo were available in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Miami.

Alphabet's Waymo paused operations in Dallas. It's unclear if it's related to the service suspension on freeways nationwide or its operations pause in Atlanta as it updates software to improve performance around construction and flooded roadways.

The suspension comes as Waymo, which has been growing its robotaxi operation for years, faces competition from Tesla and Amazon's Zoox.

“We have temporarily paused freeway operations, as we work to integrate recent technical learnings into our software and expect to resume these routes soon,” a Waymo spokesperson said in an email.

Freeway trips on Waymo were available in California, Phoenix, and Miami.

Waymo was evaluating and improving its performance around certain types of construction zones, the company told Reuters, adding that street operations remained unaffected.

The company also paused its service in Atlanta, offered through its partnership with Uber, it said, after an unoccupied Waymo robotaxi stopped in flood water on Wednesday.

The pause follows Waymo‘s recall of about 3,800 robotaxis in the United States earlier this month, after identifying a risk that vehicles could enter flooded roads with higher speed limits, raising safety concerns.