Waymo Robotaxis Stall During San Francisco Power Outage, Prompting Safety and Regulation Questions
GeokHub
Contributing Writer
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 27 (GeokHub) A major power outage in San Francisco earlier this month that left dozens of Waymo robotaxis immobilised at intersections has reignited concerns over whether autonomous vehicles are prepared to operate safely during large-scale emergencies such as earthquakes or floods.
The outage, caused by a fire at a PG&E substation on December 20, knocked out electricity to roughly one-third of the city, disabling traffic lights across wide areas. Videos posted on social media showed Waymo’s driverless taxis — operated by Alphabet’s autonomous unit — stopped at intersections with hazard lights flashing, contributing to congestion as human drivers navigated darkened streets.
Waymo temporarily suspended operations and resumed service a day later.
Emergency Readiness Under Scrutiny
The incident has renewed calls for tighter oversight of robotaxi operations, especially as companies including Tesla and Amazon’s Zoox accelerate plans to deploy autonomous vehicles in more cities.
“If you get a response to a blackout wrong, regulators are derelict if they don’t require proof that an earthquake scenario will be handled properly,” said Philip Koopman, a computer-engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University and an autonomous-systems expert.
Waymo said its vehicles are designed to treat non-operational traffic lights as four-way stops, but acknowledged that the outage created an unusual surge in system checks.
“While the vehicles successfully traversed more than 7,000 darkened signals, the outage created a concentrated spike in confirmation requests,” Waymo said, adding that delays in responses contributed to traffic congestion.
Limits of Remote Human Control
Robotaxi companies rely on varying degrees of remote human assistance, known as teleoperation, to manage unusual situations. Waymo employs human “fleet response” agents who assist when its autonomous system encounters uncertainty.
But experts say the San Francisco incident exposed weaknesses in how remote support is scaled during crises.
“The whole point of having remote operations is for humans to be there when the system isn’t responding properly,” said Missy Cummings, director of George Mason University’s Autonomy and Robotics Center and a former adviser to U.S. road safety regulators.
“The federal government needs to regulate remote operations and ensure there are backups during catastrophic failures.”
Regulators Take Notice
California regulators confirmed they are reviewing the incident. The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) said it is in discussions with Waymo and other autonomous vehicle developers about emergency response protocols, while also drafting rules to ensure remote drivers meet “high standards for safety, accountability and responsiveness.”
The California Public Utilities Commission, which issues commercial deployment permits, is also examining the outage.
A Warning for a Growing Industry
The rollout of fully autonomous vehicles has proven slower and more costly than early forecasts suggested. Several companies have exited the space following safety incidents and regulatory pushback, including General Motors’ Cruise, whose permit was revoked after a 2023 accident involving a pedestrian.
Despite those setbacks, momentum has returned. Tesla began a limited robotaxi rollout in Austin this year, while Waymo has expanded steadily and now operates more than 2,500 vehicles across San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin and Atlanta.
Waymo said it is updating its systems to better handle large-scale power disruptions by giving vehicles clearer contextual information during outages.
Still, experts argue that regulators should impose stricter requirements once autonomous fleets reach a certain size.
“If this had been an earthquake, it would have been a problem,” Koopman said. “This is a shot across the bow.”
