Self-driving car service Waymo has resumed service in San Francisco after suspending operations due to a city-wide power outage that caused major traffic jams involving the robotaxis.
Waymo said Monday that it had resumed service, a day after it halted operations due to the autonomous cars snarling traffic during a nasty Saturday blackout that left traffic lights down across the city. The far-reaching outage was caused by a fire at a PG&E substation that knocked out power to roughly one-third of the city. Over 130,000 residents were impacted and businesses had to close temporarily.
Traffic lights throughout the city were also without power, seemingly leaving the driverless cars confused, with many stopping in their tracks and causing major traffic blockages.
As power outages swept across the city, photos and videos shared by social media users showed the autonomous vehicles stuck at intersections with long lines of drivers piling up behind them.
“Power outage took out the waymos RIP,” one X user jokingly wrote along with a video of the stalled vehicles.
The user noted that, at least in those circumstances, the autonomous cars “recovered reasonably quickly” and the intersection had been cleared.
However, in some instances, video showed several Waymos piled up in front of a single intersection.
In a statement, Waymo told Reuters that most of the trips underway at the time of the outage ended normally before the vehicles returned to depots or pulled over.
“Yesterday’s power outage was a widespread event that caused gridlock across San Francisco, with non-functioning traffic signals and transit disruptions. While the failure of the utility infrastructure was significant, we are committed to ensuring our technology adjusts to traffic flow during such events,” a Waymo spokesperson told The Independent on Sunday.
“Throughout the outage, we closely coordinated with San Francisco city officials. We are focused on rapidly integrating the lessons learned from this event, and are committed to earning and maintaining the trust of the communities we serve every day,” the company added.
The company said it was committed to ensuring its technology better adapts to traffic conditions to prevent any other issues should similar disruptions arise again.
