Waymo says San Francisco service resumed after outage
Waymo says San Francisco robotaxi service has resumed after the company paused operations for about one hour during a city power outage. Alphabet-owned Waymo made temporary adjustments while monitoring conditions that reportedly affected around 7,000 PG&E customers, then restored normal service after assessing the outage and coordinating with local officials.
Key Takeaways
- Waymo temporarily paused San Francisco robotaxi service for about one hour during a power outage.
- The outage appeared to affect around 7,000 PG&E customers in the city.
- Riders were told service was paused and freeway routes were unavailable.
- Waymo resumed after assessing the outage and coordinating with local officials.
- Prior outages have stalled Waymo vehicles and prompted calls for tougher AV rules.
What happened to Waymo's San Francisco service?
On July 18, 2026, Waymo told San Francisco customers that robotaxi service was "temporarily paused" and that "freeway routes are unavailable," according to a screenshot shared on social media and reported by TechCrunch.
The disruption coincided with a power outage that appeared to hit about 7,000 PG&E customers across the city. For riders who rely on driverless trips, even a short halt can scramble plans—and raise fresh questions about how autonomous fleets handle citywide emergencies.
Why did Waymo pause rides during the outage?
A Waymo spokesperson first said the Alphabet-owned company was making "temporary adjustments" to its service while monitoring local conditions, adding that riders depend on the service and that normal operations would return as soon as possible.
In a follow-up statement after TechCrunch's initial report, Waymo said it "decided to pause service for approx. one hour to assess the scale of the power outage affecting a large portion of San Francisco and coordinate with local officials." The company later confirmed service had resumed.
That sequence—pause, assess, coordinate, restart—matters for anyone tracking Future Tech & AI Wonders, because it shows how robotaxi operators still lean on human judgment when the grid fails.
Have power outages disrupted Waymo before?
Yes. Power outages have caused problems for Waymo before. In December, a number of Waymo vehicles stalled on city streets during a blackout. A similar incident paralyzed traffic during a Golden Gate Bridge fireworks show on the Fourth of July.
Those episodes help explain why San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie has called for tougher state regulations to "adequately address how autonomous vehicles operate during major incidents, planned or not." Saturday's roughly one-hour pause was shorter than past traffic snarls, but it underscores the same pressure point: when lights go out, robotaxis remain a public-policy flashpoint as much as a tech story.