Waymo robotaxis halted during San Francisco power outage

A power outage in in San Francisco brought Waymo self-driving ‘robotaxis’ to a halt on the streets of the Californian city. 

A fire in a substation caused the power failure on the afternoon of Saturday 20 December. The outage left more than 100,000 customers without power, said utility provider PG&E. 

During the outage traffic signals stopped working, leading to city officials, olice officers, fire crews, and others to help with the flow of cars on the roads. A number of rail commuter train lines and stations also shut down.

One effect of the power failure was that Waymo robotaxis operating in the Bay Area stopped at intersections with their hazard lights flashing.

A Waymo spokesperson explained this vehicle behavior was related to the traffic signal failures. 

“While the Waymo Driver is designed to treat non-functional signals as four-way stops, the sheer scale of the outage led to instances where vehicles remained stationary longer than usual to confirm the state of the affected intersections,” they said in a statement provided to the BBC

The majority of Waymo’s active trips were completed before vehicles were returned to depots or pulled over, the spokesperson said.

Waymo’s ride-hailing services in the city resumed as power was restored by PG&E. 

Waymo is owned by Alphabet and operates throughout the San Francisco Bay Area as well as Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin, Atlanta, Miami and other cities in Texas.

It plans to launch robotaxi ride services in London and Washington DC during 2026.