Autobayng News Team
- A power outage in San Francisco wreaked havoc on Waymo’s robotaxi fleet.
- Several social media videos and photos show the driverless taxis stuck at intersections.
- The problem got so bad that Waymo temporarily suspended its robotaxi service in the Bay Area.
Waymo’s robotaxis froze this weekend in San Francisco after a power outage left roughly 130,000 residents without electricity. The blackout caused street lights and traffic lights to go dark, and it looks like Waymo’s self-driving Jaguar I-Pace EVs had a very rough time coping with all of it.
Several videos and photos posted on social media show the white robotaxis sitting still in intersections, with their hazard lights on, apparently unsure how to cross areas that had previously had functioning street lights.
A Waymo spokesperson told The Verge that the company had temporarily paused its ride-hailing services in the San Francisco Bay Area, as it was trying to keep riders safe and ensure emergency personnel have clear access.
On Sunday evening, the company resumed operations after Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) reported that service for approximately 114,000 affected customers had been restored. The power operator added that it was continuing repairs after a fire at a five-story power substation in the city.
“We are resuming ride-hailing service in the San Francisco Bay Area. 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,” Waymo said in a statement.
Despite Waymo’s communication, the company did not disclose what caused its robotaxis to freeze after the power went out in San Francisco. The ride-hailing operator’s vehicles rely on pre-mapped data, as well as information from several sensors that provide real-time data to help navigate through challenging conditions. In a blog post from last year, Waymo said that its cars will reach out to human fleet response agents if they encounter unusual situations.
While the autonomous taxis wait for input from fleet response, they can still decide to act on their own using whatever information they have at hand. That said, as the power went out, a lot of people likely started using cellular data instead of Wi-Fi, straining networks and making data transfer more difficult.
That’s important because Waymo’s human helpers can view real-time feeds from the car’s exterior cameras and a 3D representation of what’s around the vehicle. They can also rewind feeds to better understand what led to the blockage in the first place. All of this needs a lot of bandwidth for multiple vehicles simultaneously.
Whatever the cause, it was the perfect storm for Waymo, and it comes at a time when the robotaxi war is intensifying stateside. Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO and a big proponent of driverless cars, capitalized on the situation by posting on X that Tesla Robotaxis were unaffected by the power outage in San Francisco. Related Stories We want your opinion! What would you like to see on Insideevs.com? – The InsideEVs team
