San Francisco, the epicenter of Big Tech, faced an interesting new crisis this weekend.
Waymo temporarily halted its robotaxi service in San Francisco this Saturday evening after a large blackout left many of its autonomous vehicles stalled in traffic lanes and intersections, causing gridlock across parts of the city.
San Francisco plunged into darkness when nearly 30 percent of the city was struck by a power outage, which brought vital transportation, such as self-driving cars, to a grinding halt on Saturday night.Over 130,000 houses and businesses were left in the dark, largely in the northwest part of San Francisco, including the Richmond, Sunset, Presidio, and Golden Gate Park sections, officials said on Saturday.As of early Sunday morning, more than 29,000 people were still without power, according to PowerOutageUS.The “citywide” outages forced Waymo to halt its driverless car service, stranding the autonomous vehicles in the middle of the streets, SF Gate reported.
Currently, Waymo has not explained why its vehicles stalled. It is theorized these units effectively “froze” because the blackout knocked out traffic signals and may have disrupted the connectivity and remote support they rely on, leaving them in a conservative fail‑safe state where they simply stopped rather than proceed through dark intersections.
A Waymo spokesperson said the company paused operations to prioritize rider safety and ensure that emergency responders could move freely through affected areas, the San Francisco Standard reported.The company didn’t specify why the blackout disrupted its vehicles, though the outage may have interfered with traffic signals or wireless data feeds that Waymo’s cars rely on to navigate safely, prompting them to stop as a precaution.The episode highlighted how dependent autonomous vehicle fleets are on external infrastructure. While Waymo frequently emphasizes that its vehicles outperform human drivers on safety metrics, the incident underscored their vulnerability to failures beyond the company’s control, such as disruptions to the power grid.
The cause of the blackout is being reported as a fire inside San Francisco’s Eighth and Mission substation, which caused “significant and extensive” damage. As of this report, over 20,000 area residents are still without power.
PG&E said on social media that the remaining 21,000 without power on Sunday morning are concentrated in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, the Richmond District and small areas downtown. The company said it could not offer a precise time frame for full restoration but would continue to provide updates.“The damage from the fire in our substation was significant and extensive and the repairs and safe restoration will be complex,” PG&E posted Sunday morning on X. “We have mobilized additional engineers and electricians.”
Interestingly, the Tesla services in the city continued despite the blackout.
Unlike Waymo, Tesla does not operate a driverless robotaxi service in San Francisco.Tesla’s local ride-hailing service uses vehicles equipped with “FSD (Supervised),” a premium driver assistance system. The service requires a human driver behind the wheel at all times.According to state regulators — including the California Department of Motor Vehicles and California Public Utilities Commission — Tesla has not obtained permits to conduct driverless testing or services in the state without human safety supervisors behind the wheel, ready to steer or brake at any time.Tesla is vying to become a robotaxi titan, but does not yet operate commercial, driverless services. Tesla’s Robotaxi app allows users to hail a ride; however, its vehicles currently have human safety supervisors or drivers on board, even in states where the company has obtained permits for driverless operations.
In retrospect, Waymo’s stoppage during the San Francisco blackout, the slow restoration of power, and PG&E’s description of “significant and extensive” damage at a single substation rightly fuel broader questions about whether California’s energy system is resilient enough to handle both routine stresses and extreme events. Legal Insurrection has covered several other troubling incidents featuring the state’s grid, including EV-pushing regulators begging citizens not to charge their vehicles during a heatwave.
Darkened neighborhoods, failed traffic signals, and stranded autonomous vehicles are not the result of bad luck, but the predictable result of years of under‑investment in hard infrastructure (i.e., transformers, substations, and transmission lines) because political and regulatory priorities have pushed utilities into promoting “sustainable” energy at the expense of basic care of the systems that have reliably worked for decades but are beginning to age.
This event is another example of cascading failure, attributable to delusional decisions made in Sacramento based on pseudoscience and vibes. I predict that there will be even more Golden State energy-based dramas playing out in 2026.
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