Francisco over the weekend caused Waymo’s self-driving taxis to stop operating across the city.
The blackout began on Saturday afternoon after a fire caused what utility company PG&E described as “significant and extensive” damage at a substation, leaving more than 100,000 customers without electricity.
Videos shared on social media showed Waymo robotaxis stalled in the middle of streets and at intersections, hazard lights flashing as congestion built up and drivers weaved around the stationary vehicles.
Waymo temporarily suspended all services in the Bay Area following the outage, a company spokesperson said, but has since restarted operations.
City officials said that during the outage, many traffic signals stopped functioning. Mayor Daniel Lurie deployed police officers, fire crews and other personnel to help manage traffic flow. Several commuter rail lines and stations were also shut down.
Waymo said it remained in contact with city officials throughout the disruption.
“While the Waymo Driver is designed to treat non-functional signals as four-way stops, the scale of the outage led to situations where vehicles remained stationary longer than usual while confirming the status of affected intersections,” a Waymo spokesperson said in a statement to the BBC.
That, the spokesperson added, “contributed to traffic friction during the height of congestion.”
Most Waymo trips that were already underway were completed before vehicles were returned to depots or safely pulled over, according to the company.
By Sunday afternoon, PG&E said power had been restored to all but 17,000 customers and that service was expected to be fully restored by Monday afternoon.
Waymo confirmed that its ride-hailing services in San Francisco have now resumed.
Owned by the same parent company as Google, Waymo operates autonomous ride-hailing services across the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin, Atlanta, Miami and several cities in Texas. The company plans to launch services in London and Washington, DC, next year and recently reported providing more than 14 million rides in 2025 — three times the number recorded in 2024.
