Alphabet-owned Waymo resumed its driverless ride-hailing service in the San Francisco Bay Area on Sunday evening after temporarily pausing operations during widespread power outages, according to the company.
The blackouts began on Saturday afternoon after a fire damaged a PG&E substation, knocking out traffic signals and affecting approximately 130,000 customers at their peak.
Waymo said it proactively suspended service as traffic congestion worsened and coordinated with city officials throughout the outage.
Videos posted on social media showed several Waymo vehicles stopped in traffic as intersections lost power.
Waymo stated that its vehicles are designed to treat non-functioning traffic signals as four-way stops; however, the scale of the outage caused some cars to remain stationary longer than usual to confirm intersection conditions.
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said police officers, firefighters, and other city personnel were deployed to help manage traffic and restore transit services.
During the disruption, Tesla CEO Elon Musk stated on X that Tesla’s robotaxi service was unaffected, although Tesla does not currently operate a fully driverless service in San Francisco.
Tesla’s local ride-hailing uses vehicles with its supervised driver-assistance system and requires a human driver at all times.
Waymo remains one of the few companies operating fully driverless robotaxi services for the public, as regulators and researchers continue to scrutinize how autonomous vehicles perform during large-scale infrastructure failures.
Key Takeaways:
- Waymo temporarily paused and then resumed its San Francisco robotaxi service following widespread power outages that disrupted traffic signals.
- The incident highlighted ongoing challenges for fully autonomous vehicles during predictable infrastructure failures like blackouts.
- Regulators and researchers are likely to continue examining how cities manage high levels of automated vehicles during emergencies.
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