Waymo appears to pause San Francisco service amidst power outage
Quick Answer
Waymo has temporarily paused its robotaxi service in San Francisco due to a power outage affecting 7,000 PG&E customers.
Quick Take
The company is monitoring local conditions and aims to resume normal operations soon, following past incidents where outages disrupted service.
Key Points
- Waymo's service is paused amid a power outage affecting 7,000 customers.
- Freeway routes are currently unavailable for San Francisco riders.
- The company previously faced issues during blackouts in December and July.
- Mayor Daniel Lurie is calling for stricter regulations on autonomous vehicle operations.
- Waymo assures riders that normal operations will resume as soon as possible.
📖 Reader Mode
~1 min readWaymo said it’s making “temporary adjustments” to its robotaxi service in San Francisco amidst a power outage that appears to have affected around 7,000 PG&E customers in the city.
According to a screenshot posted on social media, Waymo is telling SF customers that service is “temporarily paused” and that “freeway routes are unavailable.”
When TechCrunch reached out to the Alphabet-owned company for comment, a spokesperson said in a statement, “We are making temporary adjustments to our service while we monitor local conditions. We know riders depend on us, and we will return to normal operations as soon as possible.”
This isn’t the first time power outages have caused issues for Waymo. A number of Waymo vehicles stalled on city streets during a blackout in December, and a similar incident paralyzed traffic during a Golden Gate Bridge fireworks show on the Fourth of July.
As a result, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie has called for tougher state regulations to “adequately address how autonomous vehicles operate during major incidents, planned or not.”
— Originally published at techcrunch.com
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