Waymo Resumes Robotaxi Service After Power Outage in San Francisco

One day after hundreds of Waymos were left stranded in San Francisco when a burning substation belonging to the local electricity provider PG&E left a third of the city without power, Waymo has resumed its robot taxi service.

In several videos, dozens of Waymos could be seen broken down at intersections and along streets, blocking traffic.

Waymo spokeswoman Suzanne Philion said in a statement sent by email to CNBC on Sunday afternoon,

Yesterday’s power outage was a widespread event that caused gridlock across San Francisco, with non-functioning traffic signals and transit disruptions.

While the failure of the utility infrastructure was significant, we are committed to ensuring our technology adjusts to traffic flow during such events.

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. This contributed to traffic friction during the height of the congestion.

The majority of active trips were successfully completed before vehicles were safely returned to depots or pulled over.

Here is a video compilation of Waymos that got stuck:

This article was also published in German.