Waymo robotaxis paused in SF after blackout leaves cars stranded
Waymo hit pause on its self-driving taxi service in San Francisco after a widespread blackout Saturday night.
A fire at a PG&E substation knocked out power, leaving Waymo cars stuck awkwardly at intersections while human drivers carefully navigated around them—plenty of people shared the scene on social media.
Blackout left thousands in the dark and exposed tech's limits
The outage affected about 120,000 customers; by Sunday morning, 35,000 were still without electricity.
With traffic lights down and public transit disrupted, the incident showed how much autonomous vehicles depend on city infrastructure—and how quickly things can get messy when it fails.
Waymo's next steps (and a heads-up from the mayor)
Waymo said it "temporarily suspended our ride-hailing services" and is working with city officials to monitor things and get back online.
With congestion piling up, Mayor Daniel Lurie asked people to avoid driving unless absolutely necessary until everything's sorted out.