Waymo vehicles appear to be blocking intersections during power outage in San Francisco
Waymo has temporarily suspended its service due to widespread power outages in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Ahead of Waymo’s plans to roll out its self-driving ride-hailing service in Nashville in 2026, a large-scale power outage occurred in San Francisco late last month, leaving many vehicles out of action.
A traffic jam occurred.
The outage, caused by a fire at a Pacific Gas & Electric substation on December 20, caused a blackout that plunged one-third of the city into darkness.
The incident raises concerns about self-driving cars amid a state of emergency in flood-prone Nashville and Middle Tennessee. Waymo’s self-driving cars are expected to hit the streets of Nashville in 2026.
“Saturday’s outage was a widespread event that caused traffic congestion across San Francisco, including outages and disrupted traffic,” a Waymo spokesperson told The Tennessean, part of the USA Today Network, last week.
Social media posts showed a stuck self-driving car with its hazard lights flashing. Waymo’s software normally treats disabled traffic lights as four-way stops, but traffic was overwhelming the system.
“While the disruption to public infrastructure was significant, we work to ensure that our technology adapts to traffic flow when such an event occurs,” the spokesperson added.
Waymo suspended operations for the rest of the day after the power went out.
Waymo emergency plan
The partnership with Lyft will see Waymo responsible for the self-driving car software, while the ride-hailing company will manage the fleet and its maintenance.
In Nashville, Waymo must navigate a city susceptible to environmental disasters such as floods and tornadoes.
Waymo representatives did not respond to questions about Nashville-specific contingency plans, but company officials said they worked with San Francisco government during the outages.
“During the power outage, we worked closely with San Francisco city officials,” a spokesperson said. “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.”
Waymo said its self-driving drivers have an 85% lower crash rate than human-driven vehicles, and that humans crash 6.7 times more frequently than Waymo vehicles.
The company said it is constantly improving its technical and operational safety systems to better identify hazards and employ fail-safe operations in unexpected situations. The company began offering software training on the streets of Nashville in March.
The company said if an incident occurs, you can call 9-1-1 and have a team dispatched to the scene. In the event of a collision, the vehicle can automatically turn off its propulsion system. The vehicle is also equipped with speakers for in-vehicle communication with company officials.
Waymo said it is working to improve vehicle behavior in difficult situations, including:
- snow and ice accumulated on the road
- flooded road
- mountain path
- off road truck
It’s unclear where Waymo will operate in Nashville, but company officials say it will include neighborhoods such as Germantown, Berry Hill, Sylvan Park and Old Hickory.
Waymo said its vehicles are trained to operate in the following areas and conditions:
- Roadways: Highways, highways, urban roads, and rural roads with speed limits up to 100 miles per hour.
- parking
- day and night
- fog
- rain
