Waymo cars stall during San Francisco blackout

Waymo suspended service of its driverless robotaxis in San Francisco during a blackout that hit many of the city’s residents on Saturday night.

Around a third of San Francisco residents were without power for hours due to a fire at a Pacific Gas and Electric substation, The San Francisco Standard reported. During the blackout, people noticed that Waymo vehicles appeared to be blocking intersections and causing traffic congestion. Waymo announced that evening that it had suspended service in the city due to the power outages, Mission Local reported.

San Franciscians shared photos and videos on X:

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Autonomous Waymo vehicles are designed to treat non-functional signals as four-way stops, but the scale of the blackout led to instances of cars stalling for longer than usual to confirm the state of affected intersections, according to Waymo. The majority of active trips were successfully completed before the cars pulled over or returned to depots.

The company didn’t share with Mashable what percentage of the self-driving fleet was impacted, or why the driverless vehicles stopped working during the blackout.

Waymo’s spokesperson, Suzanne Philion, told Mashable in an emailed statement that, “We have temporarily suspended our ride-hailing services in the San Francisco Bay Area due to the widespread power outage. Our teams are working diligently and in close coordination with city officials, and we are hopeful to bring our services back online soon.”

While power began to be restored around 9:10 p.m. last night, some outages remain early Sunday morning according to PG&E’s map.

Around 4 p.m. PT Sunday, a Waymo spokesperson updated Mashable and stated, “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.”

“Throughout the outage, we closely coordinated with San Francisco city officials,” the spokesperson continued. “We are focused on rapidly integrating the lessons learned from this event, and are committed to earning and maintaining the trust of the communities we serve every day.”

This is the latest in a recent series of Waymo incidents. Just this month, a viral video showed a driverless Waymo seemingly driving straight into traffic, a Los Angeles woman discovered a stranger in the trunk of her Waymo, and Waymo issued a software recall following reports of the cars illegally passing school buses in Austin.

Back in November, Waymo was hit with a wave of criticism in San Francisco after an autonomous car struck a beloved neighborhood cat.

UPDATE: Dec. 22, 2025, 9:26 a.m. EST This article has been updated with further information and an updated statement from Waymo.