541/68 Tuesday, December 23, 2025
Waymo, Alphabet’s autonomous driving technology company, has announced a temporary suspension of its robotaxi service in San Francisco following a widespread power outage that left multiple self-driving vehicles stranded on city streets. A Waymo spokesperson said the company decided to halt operations as a safety precaution and is working closely with city authorities to resolve the situation, adding that services will resume once systems are fully ready.
The power outage occurred at around 1:09 p.m., affecting approximately 130,000 electricity customers across San Francisco. As of Sunday morning, around 21,000 residents were still without power. Reports indicate that the outage was caused by a fire at a Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) substation, which may have disrupted traffic signals as well as parts of the city’s communications and traffic data networks. As a result, Waymo’s autonomous vehicles automatically stopped operating.
Waymo develops and operates fully autonomous driving systems and currently offers robotaxi services in select U.S. cities. The incident highlights ongoing challenges for autonomous vehicle systems, which still rely heavily on urban infrastructure such as power supply and intelligent traffic systems. Meanwhile, on Elon Musk’s X platform, the Tesla CEO referenced the incident, claiming that Tesla’s robotaxi service was not affected by the outage—underscoring the intense competition in the autonomous vehicle industry, where companies pursue different technologies and development approaches.
