Waymo suspends service in San Francisco as robotaxis stall during blackout

Waymo suspended its robotaxi work successful San Francisco connected Saturday evening aft a monolithic blackout appeared to permission galore of its vehicles stalled connected metropolis streets.

Numerous photos and videos posted to societal media captured Waymo robotaxis stalled astatine roads and intersections arsenic quality drivers either passed them by oregon were stuck down them.

Waymo said connected Saturday that it had temporarily suspended work successful the metropolis owed to the blackout. Spokesperson Suzanne Philion provided a akin connection to TechCrunch connected Sunday morning.

“We person temporarily suspended our ride-hailing services successful the San Francisco Bay Area owed to the wide powerfulness outage,” Philion said. “Our teams are moving diligently and successful adjacent coordination with metropolis officials to show infrastructure stability, and we are hopeful to bring our services backmost online soon. We admit your patience and volition supply further updates arsenic soon arsenic they are available.”

The institution did not supply an mentation for wherefore the blackout had specified a melodramatic effect connected its vehicles. One imaginable culprit: The blackout took down galore of the city’s postulation lights. (In fact, with the blackout affecting some lights and Muni wide transit, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie warned residents to enactment disconnected the roads unless they needed to travel.)

Others theorized that Waymo mightiness person been affected by an interruption successful cell service oregon traffic data.

The blackout appears to person been caused by a occurrence astatine a Pacific Gas & Electric substation successful the city. SFGate reports that astir 120,000 PG&E customers were affected by the blackout, and portion the bulk of them had powerfulness restored by precocious Saturday, 35,000 customers were inactive without powerfulness connected Sunday morning. PG&E’s website besides showed thousands of San Francisco customers inactive affected astatine that time.

A missive from Tiger Global Management leaked earlier this period said that Waymo is present providing 450,000 robotaxi rides per week, astir treble the magnitude that the Alphabet-owned institution disclosed successful the spring.