Waymo resumes service in San Francisco after robotaxis stall during blackout

Waymo temporarily suspended its robotaxi service in San Francisco on Saturday evening after a widespread power outage appeared to leave many of its autonomous vehicles stalled on city streets.

Photos and videos shared on social media showed Waymo robotaxis stopped in roadways and at intersections, forcing human drivers to either wait behind them or manoeuvre around them.

Waymo confirmed on Saturday that it had paused service in the city due to the blackout. Service was not resumed until late Sunday afternoon, when a Waymo spokesperson told TechCrunch that operations were restarting.

“Yesterday’s power outage was a widespread event that caused gridlock across San Francisco, with non-functioning traffic signals and transit disruptions,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “While the failure of the utility infrastructure was significant, we are committed to ensuring our technology adjusts to traffic flow during such events.”

The spokesperson added that the company is “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.”

Power outage took out the waymos RIP pic.twitter.com/DPte8oOGku — Vincent Woo (@fulligin) December 21, 2025

The blackout also knocked out many of San Francisco’s traffic lights and disrupted Muni public transit. Daniel Lurie warned residents to stay off the roads unless travel was necessary.

Waymo said its autonomous driving systems are designed to treat non-functioning traffic signals as four-way stops. However, the scale of Saturday’s outage caused some robotaxis to remain stationary longer than usual while they attempted to navigate complex intersections. The company said that most active trips were ultimately completed successfully.

The outage is believed to have been caused by a fire at a Pacific Gas & Electric substation in the city. According to SFGate, roughly 120,000 PG&E customers were affected. While power was restored for most customers by late Saturday, around 35,000 remained without electricity on Sunday morning. PG&E’s website also indicated that thousands of San Francisco customers were still affected at that time.

The incident comes as Waymo continues to scale its autonomous ride-hailing operations. A letter from Tiger Global Management that leaked earlier this month said Waymo is now providing about 450,000 robotaxi rides per week — nearly double the number the Alphabet subsidiary disclosed earlier this spring.

This post has been updated to include Waymo’s statement confirming that service has resumed.

Power out in SF and the @Waymo’s are causing a MASSIVE jam in North Beach 🤣 pic.twitter.com/fuvhprlyma — Iago Maciel (@_iagomaciel) December 21, 2025