Waymo Robotaxis Froze, Slowed Down Traffic During San Francisco Blackout

Last updated: 2025/12/22 at 4:51 AM

News Room Published 22 December 2025

We might not yet be ready to let robots and machines take over, and a power outage over the weekend in San Francisco was an example of why. The blackout temporarily cut off power to over 130,000 customers and some traffic signals in the city on Saturday, leaving Waymo robotaxis stranded.

As The New York Times reports, Waymo’s autonomous vehicles started malfunctioning when they didn’t have traffic signals to look at.

In such situations, the cars are designed to treat each intersection as a four-way stop, but the sheer scale of the outage meant that “vehicles remained stationary longer than usual to confirm the state of the affected intersections,” a Waymo spokesperson tells NYT. “This contributed to traffic friction during the height of the congestion.”

Multiple videos of the robotaxis getting stranded on roads and flashing their hazard lights surfaced on social media during the weekend. In such situations, the vehicles are supposed to coordinate with their remote human operators, but the power outage may have broken wireless signals, the report adds.

No casualties were reported as a result of the freezing. However, Waymo halted its service late on Saturday after the city’s mayor reportedly reached out to them. Tow truck operators spent hours overnight to take the stranded Waymo vehicles off, and the services resumed at 3:30 p.m. PT on Sunday.

Most of San Francisco has regained power, with full restoration expected by 2 p.m. PT on Monday.

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk, meanwhile, took the opportunity to promote the company’s own robotaxis, which weren’t affected by the outage. These vehicles are not fully driverless. As CNBC notes, they rely on supervised FSD technology, meaning a human driver is always present behind the wheel.

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This isn’t the first time Waymo’s robotaxis have displayed odd behavior. Recently, the company issued a software recall after the cars failed to stop for school buses. One of the cars also killed a cat in San Francisco earlier this year.