Waymo self-driving taxis in San Francisco stopped operating over the weekend due to a significant power loss. According to a statement from utility company PG&E, the Saturday afternoon outage that left over 100,000 customers without power was caused by “significant and extensive” damage from a fire in a substation.
Social media videos showed Waymo robotaxis stopping in the middle of metropolitan streets and intersections while flashing their hazard lights, causing traffic backups to worsen and drivers to zigzag around the stopped vehicles. According to a representative, Waymo has since resumed operations after initially pausing all service in the Bay Area due to the disruption.
According to city officials, many traffic lights failed during the outage, and Mayor Daniel Lurie deployed firefighters, police officers, and other personnel to assist with traffic flow. Additionally, several commuter rail stations and lines are closed. Waymo claimed that during the downtime, the company collaborated with local authorities.
In a statement given to the BBC, a Waymo representative stated, “The sheer scope of the outage led to instances where vehicles remained stationary longer than usual to confirm the state of the affected intersections, even though the Waymo Driver is designed to treat non-functional signals as four-way stops.
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