During the outage, California residents reported spotting Waymo vehicles stalled on the streets, disrupting traffic and causing gridlock.
Waymo has resumed services in San Francisco after temporarily suspending them due to a massive power outage in the city on Saturday (20 December).
At its peak, the outage affected 130,000 customers. Since, power has been restored to a majority of the homes, according to Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E).
A fire has been blamed for the outage, according to the utility provider, though the matter is still under investigation. “The damage from the fire in our substation was significant and extensive, and the repairs and safe restoration will be complex,” PG&E said in a statement.
During the incident, California residents reported spotting Waymo vehicles stalled on the streets, disrupting traffic and adding on to the gridlock. The service was suspended in the Bay Area as a result.
Waymo entered San Francisco in 2023 and runs around 1,000 driverless vehicles. These types of vehicles use detailed maps, cameras, sensors and radars to get around. Waymo cars recently started entering freeways across San Francisco Bay Area, Phoenix and Los Angeles.
The company claims its vehicles are better than human drivers – that it boosts road safety by avoiding high-severity collisions. However, Waymo has suffered from software malfunction-related collisions.
The weekend’s outage-related malfunctions, however, have raised experts’ eyebrows, because Waymo and other self-driving car manufacturers design their vehicles so they can continue operating even when they lose access to wireless networks.
“The sheer scale of the outage led to instances where vehicles remained stationary longer than usual to confirm the state of the affected intersections. This contributed to traffic friction during the height of the congestion,” a statement from the company read.
While in a comment to CNBC, the company said, “While the failure of the utility infrastructure was significant, we are committed to ensuring our technology adjusts to traffic flow during such events.”
Telsa Robotaxis, which provides limited self-driving ride-sharing services in San Francisco, remained unaffected by the outage, according to owner Elon Musk. Tesla’s services were launched with a human safety monitor on board.
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