A Waymo car is halted on the road amid a power outage in San Francisco, California, U.S., December 20, 2025, in this screengrab obtained from a social media video.d
Reuters
Three days after a blackout in San Francisco caused Waymo to pause its driverless car service, the Alphabet-owned company said it’s updating its fleet so its vehicles are better prepared to respond during future outages.
“We’ve always focused on developing the Waymo Driver for the world as it is, including when infrastructure fails,” the company said in a blog post late Tuesday.
Power outages began early afternoon on Saturday in San Francisco and peaked roughly two hours later, affecting about 130,000 customers, according to Pacific Gas and Electric. As of Sunday morning, about 21,000 customers remained without power. PG&E said a fire at a substation resulted in “significant and extensive” damage.
With stoplights and traffic signals not functioning, the city was hit with widespread gridlock. Videos shared on social media appeared to show multiple Waymo vehicles stalled in traffic in various neighborhoods.
“We directed our fleet to pull over and park appropriately so we could return vehicles to our depots in waves,” Waymo said in Tuesday’s blog post. “This ensured we did not further add to the congestion or obstruct emergency vehicles during the peak of the recovery effort.”
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said in an update on X Saturday evening that police officers, fire crews, parking control officers and city ambassadors were deployed across affected neighborhoods.
Waymo said that it’s analyzing the event, and is taking three “immediate steps.”
The first involves “fleet-wide updates” to give vehicles “more context about regional outages,” so cars can take more decisive actions at intersections. The company said it’s also improving its “emergency response protocols,” and is coordinating with Mayor Lurie’s team in San Francisco to better collaborate in emergency preparedness. Finally, Waymo said it’s updating its first responder training “as we discover learnings from this and other widespread events.”
In addition to the Bay Area, Waymo currently serves paid rides to the public in and around Austin, Texas, Phoenix, Atlanta and Los Angeles. The company recently crossed an estimated 450,000 weekly paid rides, and said in December it had served 14 million trips in 2025, putting it on pace to end the year at more than 20 million trips total since launching in 2020.
“Backed by 100M+ miles of fully autonomous driving experience and a record of improving road safety, we are undaunted by the opportunity to challenge the status quo of our roads, and we’re proud to continue serving San Franciscan residents and visitors,” the company said in Tuesday’s blog.
— CNBC’s Lora Kolodny and Jennifer Elias contributed to this report.
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