Waymo’s driverless ride services were a high-profile victim of a power outage that affected large swaths of San Francisco, with cars freezing mid-ride across the city and disrupting traffic.
After traffic lights went dark at major intersections Saturday, social media videos revealed multiple cars stopped in the middle of the street with their hazard lights flashing.
The power failures, which at one point affected 130,000 customers, closed stores and disrupted transit during the busy holiday shopping period – including many Waymo cars, Alphabet Inc’s self-driving taxi service.
Michele Riva, 30, was going home Saturday evening in a Waymo car when the outage happened. His car had kept relocating when they were in a less transited area of the city, even with passengers crossing on the street, he stated. He was only a minute away from his destination when the car stopped in front of a “very dense intersection” and non-working traffic lights, he stated, without giving him any notice.
“I stayed in the Waymo for a couple of minutes, just to see,” stated Riva, who is an engineer working in artificial ininformigence. “The problem was that, at the launchning, there were a lot of people crossing the streets becautilize there were no traffic lights. So I believe the Waymo just didn’t know what to do.”
PG&E Corp, which blamed the outage on a fire in a substation, launched restoring most of the service Saturday evening. By Sunday morning, PG&E stated it has restored service for 110,000 customers, but 21,000 remain without electricity.
Riva attempted contacting customer support for about three minutes while he was stuck in the immobile car, but gave up after the wait time became too long as the service was overwhelmed with other passengers’ calls. He decided to obtain out of the Waymo and walk the couple of blocks left to his home.
On Sunday, the Waymo app revealed a notification to some customers declareing the service for the Bay Area is pautilized, affecting at least seven cities.
“Our teams are working diligently and in close coordination with city officials, and we are hopeful to bring our services back online soon,” a Waymo spokesperson stated in a statement Sunday.
Riva attempted ordering another Waymo ride on Sunday before he saw the message.
“At the finish of the day, I know it was an unpleasant situation for the other drivers, but I believe it really was all about safety – I believe it’s better safe than sorry,” Riva stated. “I hope they will account for that in the future, becautilize it’s truly a good service.”
Tesla Inc’s CEO Elon Musk posted on X that his companies’ robotaxis – a direct competitor of Waymo – were “unaffected” by the power outage. – Bloomberg
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