Source The Hindu
SAN FRANCISCO – A massive power outage that plunged nearly a third of San Francisco into darkness on December 20, 2025, has reignited a fierce debate over the reliability of autonomous vehicles. While the city grappled with darkened neighborhoods and failing infrastructure, hundreds of Waymo robotaxis became part of the problem, stalling at intersections and snarling traffic during a critical window for emergency responders.
The incident, triggered by a fire at a PG&E substation, cut power to roughly 130,000 residents and rendered thousands of traffic lights inoperative. For many San Franciscans, the sight of driverless Jaguar I-Pace EVs sitting motionless with hazard lights flashing became the defining image of the crisis.
The “Confirmation Spike”
In a statement following the outage, Waymo clarified that its vehicles are programmed to treat dark traffic signals as four-way stops. However, the sheer scale of the blackout—affecting over 7,000 signals—created a “concentrated spike” in confirmation requests from the fleet to human remote-assistance operators.
“The outage created a backlog that led to response delays, contributing to congestion on already-overwhelmed streets,” Waymo admitted.
While the company eventually suspended its commercial service for 24 hours to clear the roads for emergency personnel, critics argue the damage was already done. In at least one instance, a passenger was reportedly stranded inside a stationary vehicle until they could be manually assisted.
Infrastructure Dependence Exposed
The failure has provided a “stress test” for the industry, exposing how deeply “Level 4” autonomous fleets depend on stable urban infrastructure. Experts suggest that while the cars didn’t “crash,” their conservative safety programming—stopping when uncertain—created a different kind of public hazard.
Congestion: Stalled vehicles blocked evacuation routes and delayed fire trucks and ambulances.
Teleoperation Limits: The reliance on human “fleet response” agents became a bottleneck when hundreds of cars requested help simultaneously.
Regulatory Scrutiny: The California DMV and Public Utilities Commission have launched inquiries, with experts calling for stricter “crisis-ready” permitting requirements.
A Tale of Two Systems
The outage also fueled the ongoing rivalry between autonomous approaches. Supporters of Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) were quick to share footage of Tesla vehicles navigating the darkened intersections without pausing. Elon Musk weighed in on X, claiming his company’s vision-based AI, trained on “billions of real-world miles,” is better suited for the “mess” of a real-world crisis than Waymo’s map-heavy approach.
However, safety advocates caution against such comparisons. “If this had been a major earthquake instead of a power outage, these roadblocks could have been fatal,” said Philip Koopman, a computer-engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University. “Regulators must require proof that these systems can handle chaos before they are allowed to scale further.”
Looking Ahead
Waymo has already begun implementing fleet-wide software updates to provide vehicles with better “power outage context,” allowing them to navigate dark signals more decisively without human intervention.
The San Francisco incident serves as a “shot across the bow” for the entire industry. As companies like Amazon’s Zoox and Tesla prepare for wider robotaxi launches in 2026, the focus has shifted from whether a car can drive itself to whether it can stay out of the way when the world around it stops working.
