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Waymo suspended its robotaxi service in San Francisco on Saturday evening after a major outage was seen leaving many of its vehicles on the city’s roads.
Lots of pictures and videos broadcast on social media filmed by Waymo robotaxis parked on streets and intersections as human drivers passed them or got stuck behind them.
Waymo said on Saturday it temporarily suspended operations in the city due to the power outage. Spokesperson Suzanne Philion issued a similar statement to TechCrunch on Sunday morning.
“We have temporarily suspended our tire hauling operations in the San Francisco Bay Area due to the power outage,” Philion said. “Our teams are working diligently and in cooperation with city officials to ensure the stability of the infrastructure, and we are hopeful that our services will be back online soon. We appreciate your patience and will provide additional information soon.”
The company did not explain why the power outage affected its vehicles. One possible culprit: A power outage knocked out many lights in the city. (In fact, the blackout affects all lights and Muni transit, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie warned people not to leave the road unless they need to travel.)
Some say Waymo may have been affected by the disruption cell service or car details.
The outage appears to have been caused by a fire at a Pacific Gas & Electric facility in the city. SFGate reports that about 120,000 PG&E customers were affected by the outage, and while most of them had power restored by late Saturday, 35,000 customers were without power Sunday morning. PG&E website he also showed thousands of San Francisco customers who were still affected at the time.
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Letter from Tiger Global Management a leak earlier this month said Waymo is now offering 450,000 robotaxi rides a week, nearly double the number the Alphabet-owned company reported last year.