SF Grills Waymo Over Stalled Robotaxis
San Francisco officials are pressing Waymo for answers after its robotaxis stalled and caused gridlock during a power outage. Leaders are concerned about the autonomous vehicles' reliability in emergencies and are seeking assurances that the company has fixed the issue to prevent future incidents.
The December 20th power outage, caused by a fire at a PG&E substation, led to nearly 1,600 "stoppage events" for Waymo's robotaxi fleet in San Francisco. This incident affected about a third of the city during a busy holiday period. At a City Hall hearing, Waymo executives apologized for the disruption, acknowledging they "did not meet our standards." The core of the problem was a systemic overload. While Waymo's vehicles are programmed to treat non-functioning traffic lights as four-way stops, the sheer scale of the outage created a massive spike in requests for "confirmation checks" from remote human operators. With only 70 remote operators on duty to manage the global fleet, a significant backlog was created, leading to stalled vehicles. During the incident, city officials, including the Department of Emergency Management, reported difficulty contacting Waymo, with contact only established after the mayor personally called the company. In response, Waymo has pledged to improve its emergency response protocols and implement fleet-wide updates to provide vehicles with more context during power outages, allowing them to navigate more decisively. The hearing at the Board of Supervisors' Land Use and Transportation Committee involved intense questioning from Supervisors Bilal Mahmood, Myrna Melgar, and others. Outside the hearing, unions representing Uber and Lyft drivers, including the Teamsters, protested, demanding that autonomous vehicles be taken off the streets until greater oversight is implemented. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is investigating the specifics of the incident. This event has heightened concerns about how autonomous vehicle fleets handle large-scale infrastructure failures, particularly regarding the potential to obstruct emergency responders. Waymo's permit to operate commercially without a safety driver was granted by the CPUC in August 2023, a decision that faced opposition from San Francisco transportation agencies. Despite this recent incident, a study published by Waymo found its vehicles had a significantly lower crash rate involving injuries compared to human-driven vehicles.
