Waymo Suspends Robotaxi Service in San Francisco After Pacific Gas & Electricity Substation Fire

A fire at a Pacific Gas & Electricity Company substation in San Francisco left about 130,000 households without electricity and knocked out traffic signals, and Waymo’s robotaxis then stopped at intersections and contributed to gridlock.

Numerama says the paralysis began when the power outage hit on Saturday, December 20, 2025, and that by Monday, December 22, 2025, trips were able to resume, citing TechCrunch for the timeline.

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Le Figaro reports that Waymo announced around 7 p.m. Saturday it would suspend service in the city, with spokesperson Suzanne Philion saying the priority was to ensure passenger safety and guarantee emergency services unobstructed access.

Le Figaro adds that Waymo’s vehicles are designed to adapt to outages in traffic signals by treating the intersection as a four-way stop, but that the scale of the outage led to situations where vehicles stayed immobile longer than usual, contributing to road tensions at the height of the jams.

Euronews similarly ties the disruption to the blackout leaving 130,000 households without electricity and says the service was suspended for hours as vehicles struggled to read malfunctioning traffic signals, then resumed on Sunday afternoon.

Michele Riva, a robotaxi user interviewed by Bloomberg and quoted by BFM, said, "I stayed in the Waymo car for a few minutes, just to see," and added that with no traffic signals, "So I think the Waymo vehicle simply didn't know what to do."

In a statement to CNBC, BFM reports Waymo’s spokesperson said, "Although Waymo Driver is designed to treat out-of-service traffic signals as four-way intersections," the scale of the outage led vehicles to remain stationary longer than usual to confirm intersection status.

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Elon Musk used the outage to promote Tesla, writing on X that "Tesla's robotaxis were not affected by the power outage in San Francisco," as BFM and Le Figaro both describe.

Le Figaro says Philion told CNBC that the scale of the outage overwhelmed Waymo’s ability to keep moving, and it frames the episode as a reminder that autonomous cars still have flaws when traffic lights fail.

Euronews reports that Alphabet’s subsidiary was contacted by the San Francisco mayor’s office about traffic disruption caused by its vehicles, and that it suspended services citywide on Saturday before resuming on Sunday afternoon.

Waymo told TechCrunch that it was "focused on rapidly incorporating the lessons learned from this event" and said it was "determined to win and maintain the trust of the communities we serve every day," as Euronews and Le Blog Auto both report.

“The wide power outage that plunged part of San Francisco into darkness on December 20 did not affect only its residents”

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Le Blog Auto says the company decided to suspend its entire robotaxi service in the city for several hours after the mayor’s office contacted it about congestion caused by its autonomous vehicles.

Euronews reports that no accidents or injuries attributed to Waymo’s outage were reported by city authorities, while the San Francisco Emergency Management Department said on X that there were "significant transportation disruptions" and urged residents to avoid nonessential travel.

Le Blog Auto adds that the local energy provider PG&E said the outage was caused by a fire at one of its city electrical substations, and that at its peak nearly a third of the city’s customers were without electricity for several hours.

L’actualité places the incident in a broader pattern of robotaxi complications, noting that Waymo had about a thousand robotaxis operating in San Francisco and that the company is also appearing in Los Angeles, Phoenix and Houston, after earlier incidents involving Cruise and a settlement of 10 million dollars.