Waymo pauses San Francisco robotaxi service after blackout chaos — Musk says Tesla service unaffected

Waymo, the autonomous vehicle division of Alphabet, has temporarily suspended its driverless ride-hailing service in the San Francisco Bay Area due to widespread power outages that struck the city on Saturday afternoon. A spokesperson for Waymo stated, "We have temporarily suspended our ride-hailing services in the San Francisco Bay Area due to the widespread power outage. Our teams are working diligently and in close coordination with city officials, and we hope to bring our services back online soon. We appreciate your patience and will provide further updates as they become available." As the power outages unfolded, videos circulated on social media, showing several Waymo vehicles immobilized in traffic across various locations in San Francisco. Local resident Matt Schoolfield reported seeing at least three of these vehicles stranded around 9:45 p.m. on Saturday, including one he photographed near Arguello Boulevard and Geary Street. He described the situation, saying, "They were just stopping in the middle of the street." The outages began around 1:09 p.m. and peaked approximately two hours later, impacting around 130,000 customers, according to Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E). As of Sunday morning, about 21,000 residents remained without power, particularly in areas such as the Presidio, the Richmond District, Golden Gate Park, and parts of downtown San Francisco. PG&E attributed the outages to a fire at a substation that caused "significant and extensive" damage, with no clear timeline for full restoration available yet. San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie shared updates via X, noting that emergency services had been deployed across affected neighborhoods as transit services gradually resumed. He confirmed, "Waymo has also paused service." In contrast, Tesla's CEO Elon Musk took to X to announce that Tesla's robotaxi service was unaffected by the power outage in San Francisco. However, it's important to note that Tesla does not currently operate a fully driverless robotaxi service in the city. Instead, their local ride-hailing service is equipped with "FSD (Supervised)," which requires a human driver present at all times. State regulators, including the California Department of Motor Vehicles and the California Public Utilities Commission, have indicated that Tesla has not secured permits for driverless testing or services in the state that lack human safety supervisors. While Tesla is pursuing ambitions in the robotaxi market, it has yet to launch commercial, fully autonomous services. Waymo stands as a leader in the autonomous vehicle sector in the West and is competing with Tesla and other players like Baidu's Apollo Go. As robotaxi services grow in urban areas across the U.S., Waymo's recent service suspension highlights ongoing concerns surrounding autonomous vehicle safety. A survey by the American Automobile Association earlier this year revealed that approximately two-thirds of U.S. drivers expressed fears regarding self-driving vehicles. Waymo has yet to provide a timeline for when its services will resume or clarify whether any incidents involving its vehicles occurred during the blackout. Responses from Tesla and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration were not immediately available. Stay tuned for further updates on this developing situation.