Waymo, the autonomous ride-hailing company, appeared to pause its service in San Francisco during a power outage, according to TechCrunch.
The outlet reports that the disruption coincided with a loss of power in the city, and that this is not the first time power outages have caused issues for Waymo's operations.
Beyond those points, details remain limited. TechCrunch's report does not specify how many riders were affected, how long the pause lasted, or exactly what part of Waymo's system the outage interfered with. The company runs a fleet of driverless vehicles that depend on a broader web of infrastructure — from charging and depot operations to the networks that support remote monitoring — any of which could be sensitive to a loss of power.
The episode is notable because a core promise of self-driving technology is reliability: cars that don't get tired, distracted, or stuck in the ways human drivers can. But that promise depends on the systems around the vehicles staying online. When TechCrunch notes this has happened before, it points to a recurring vulnerability rather than a one-off glitch.
For riders in San Francisco, where Waymo has become an increasingly visible part of daily transportation, an unexpected pause is a reminder that robotaxi service can still be interrupted by ordinary infrastructure problems.
Why it matters: As cities lean more heavily on autonomous vehicles for everyday travel, incidents like this show how dependent the technology remains on the reliability of the power grid and supporting infrastructure behind it.