Archive · 23 Dec 2025
California Investigates Waymo Robotaxis Stalling During Power Outage
There was a big power outage in San Francisco because of a fire.
This made the traffic lights stop working, and some robotaxis from a company called Waymo got stuck.
People saw videos of these robotaxis with their hazard lights on.
The state is now looking into what happened.
Waymo stopped its service for a while but started it again the next day.
They said their cars are supposed to treat broken traffic lights like four-way stops, but this time, many cars stayed still for too long.
Waymo has a lot of cars in different cities, and they are trying to make sure their robotaxis work well in different situations.
California regulators are investigating incidents where Waymo robotaxis stalled during a power outage in San Francisco.
The power outage, caused by a fire at a PG&E substation, affected about one-third of the city and 130,000 residents.
Waymo temporarily suspended its ride-hailing service in the Bay Area on Saturday evening and resumed it on Sunday.
Videos showed Waymo robotaxis with hazard lights on at intersections with non-functional traffic lights.
Waymo's autonomous driving system is designed to treat non-functional signals as four-way stops, but the scale of the outage led to longer-than-usual stalls.
- Who
- California regulators, Waymo (Alphabet unit)
- What
- Investigation into stalled Waymo robotaxis during a power outage
- When
- Saturday evening (incident), Sunday (service resumed)
- Where
- San Francisco, California
- Why
- Power outage due to a fire at a PG&E substation, affecting traffic lights and causing robotaxis to stall
- Company
- Waymo (Alphabet unit)
- Incident Location
- San Francisco, California
- Power Outage Cause
- Fire at PG&E substation
- Affected Residents
- 130,000
- Waymo Fleet Size
- 2,500+ vehicles
- Service Resumption
- Sunday (after temporary suspension)
- Regulatory Bodies
- California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV)