The voluntary recall comes as scrutiny by federal regulators and local school district officials increases.

The inclusion of the Waymo look-a-likes appears to be part of a larger storyline that will encourage players to "stop the development of a mass surveillance network."

The agency already opened an investigation in October over Waymo's performance around school buses. Waymo said it issued a software update to its fleet to improve performance.

Texting while driving is banned in nearly every state, even with the use of advanced driver-assistance systems like Tesla's Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software.

And the Palo Alto-based startup has raised $7.4 million to do that.

Baltimore, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis join a long list of cities where the company is gearing up to offer robotaxi rides.

The commercial robotaxi service launched last year. Now, the human safety operator is gone.

The Chinese autonomous vehicle company Pony.ai has global ambitions and plans to build a 3,000-strong robotaxi fleet to meet them.

Point One Navigation, now valued at $230 million, is building out well beyond automotive.

The new cities will see Waymo tackle harsh winter weather and narrow streets.

The two companies will start in the UK this year, before expanding to other European cities in 2026 and the U.S. in 2027.

The memo that went out Thursday, which TechCrunch obtained, says the "timing" of the company's pivot away from tractor manufacturing puts it at risk.

Burks Tractor, a dealership located in Idaho, has sued Monarch for breach of contract and allegedly violating its warranty because the California-based startup's tractors were "unable to operate autonomously." The dealership also says the 10 tractors it purchased "continue to experience significant problems," and calls them "defective."

Waymo said it will do the same in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando in the coming weeks -- the latest steps in the company's continued expansion across the U.S.

This is not a large-scale public launch, nor a commercial one. But it brings the Amazon-owned company one step closer to competing with Waymo.