Waymos blocked roads and caused chaos during San Francisco power outage
[December 23, 2025]
By JAIMIE DING and MICHAEL LIEDTKE
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Many of Waymo's self-driving cars blocked streets
of San Francisco during a mass power outage Saturday and forced the
company to temporarily suspend service, raising questions about the
cars' ability to to adapt to real-world driving conditions.
Social media users posted videos of Waymos as they encountered traffic
lights that were off. Some cars’ hazard lights blinked and they abruptly
stopped in place, failing to cross the intersection. Others stopped in
the middle of the intersection, forcing other cars to swerve around
them.
The power outage affected 130,000 homes and businesses in San Francisco,
nearly one-third of the customers served by Pacific Gas and Electric Co.
It was caused by a fire at a power substation, officials said. On
Monday, the utility company was still working to restore power to
thousands of customers.
Waymo operates hundreds of robotaxis in San Francisco, but it wasn't
clear how many cars were on the road at the time of the outage. The
company paused service Saturday evening and resumed it Sunday afternoon.
The road-blocking problems that prompted Waymo to suspend its service
during the weekend power outages revived concerns that city officials
raised about the robotaxis periodically coming to abrupt and
inexplicable stops before California regulators approved them as a
commercial service in August 2023.
Tyler Cervini, who lives in the Mission District, said he was calling an
Uber to bring him to the airport since his train station was not
operating due to the outage. At the traffic light outside his apartment,
there were five Waymos crowding the intersection, he said.
He got into his Uber right outside where all the Waymos were, but his
driver "had to swerve through them to pick me up," Cervini said. “He
seemed extremely frustrated by what was going on.”
Waymo said that its vehicles are designed to treat nonfunctioning
traffic signals as four-way stops, but the scale of the outage created
unusual conditions.
“While the failure of the utility infrastructure was significant, we are
committed to ensuring our technology adjusts to traffic flow during such
events,” a Waymo spokesperson said. “Throughout the outage, we closely
coordinated with San Francisco city officials.”
The company said most active trips were completed before vehicles were
safely returned to depots or pulled over.
Philip Koopman, professor emeritus at Carnegie Mellon University and
expert on self-driving vehicle safety, said the scale of the traffic
disruption was concerning. Autonomous vehicles are generally programmed
to come to a stop if they are unsure or confused on what to do and ask
for remote assistance, he said.
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A Waymo vehicle sits idling at an intersection with no operating
traffic lights due to power outages, in San Francisco, Saturday,
Dec. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
Koopman said it did not appear to be a software failure in the cars
themselves, but an “operational management failure” where the
company did not have the capability to deal with so many robotaxis
needing assistance at once.
Waymo should have suspended service earlier — as soon as their
vehicles started having issues, he said.
“If you have thousands of robotaxis that stop, you have a problem,”
he said. “What if this had been an earthquake? You would have
thousands of robotaxis blocking the road.”
Waymo, which started as a secret project within Google in 2009, has
steadily expanded its operations in San Francisco while also
introducing its robotaxis into other California cities such as Los
Angeles and San Jose, in addition to other U.S. markets in Texas,
Arizona, Florida and Georgia.
In the months leading up to the approval from the state’s Public
Utilities Commission, San Francisco's transportation and fire
department leaders flagged dozens of reports about robotaxis coming
to standstills, blocking traffic.
Besides inconveniencing other drivers trying to get to their
destinations, the road-blocking robotaxis were viewed as a possible
impediment in life-threatening emergencies when firefighters and
police officers were responding to calls for help.
Waymo’s fleet of robotaxis is on pace to complete more than 14
million rides this year, more than tripling from last year,
according to the company.
California is considering expanding approval for heavy-duty
autonomous trucks and vehicles carrying up to 15 passengers to
operate, a move opposed by unions representing truck drivers.
Shane Gusman, director of Teamsters California, called the Waymo
disruption “a clear warning that turning our roads and lives over to
autonomous vehicles is premature and dangerous.”
“We live in a state where blackouts, wildfires, floods and
earthquakes affecting power and roadways are all too common," Gusman
said in a statement. “AVs stalled in streets and intersections
threaten the safety of AV passengers, and others on the road, and
inhibit emergency response when we need it most.”
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Ding reported from Los Angeles.
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