Waymo said its robotaxi service has resumed after “temporary adjustments” in San Francisco following a power outage that appears to have affected about 7,000 PG&E customers.
Waymo told SF customers that service was “temporarily suspended” and “freeway routes are unavailable,” according to screenshots posted on social media.
When TechCrunch contacted the Alphabet-owned company for comment, a spokesperson said in a statement: “We are making temporary adjustments to our services while we monitor local conditions. We know our passengers rely on us and we will return to normal operations as soon as possible.”
After this article was first published, a Waymo spokesperson added, “We have decided to pause service for approximately one hour to assess the scale of the outage affecting a significant portion of San Francisco and to work with local officials.”
Waymo services have been affected by outages in the past. For example, in December a power outage left multiple Waymo vehicles stuck on city streets, and a similar incident disrupted traffic during the Golden Gate Bridge fireworks display on July 4th.
As a result, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie called for stricter state regulations “to properly address how autonomous vehicles perform in the event of a major accident, planned or not.”
This post has been updated with additional comments from Waymo reflecting the resumption of service.
