SF Blackout Blocks Streets & Intersections With Paralyzed Waymo Cabs

[hatrack]

There was a power outage in San Francisco on Saturday, initially leaving 124,000 of 414,000 customers—about 30%—in the dark. It also caused a widespread Waymo meltdown, with apparently all active Waymo robotaxis in the affected parts of the city stuck in robotic comas, blocking intersections and choking traffic on some streets.

Waymo spokesperson Suzanne Philion issued a statement at approximately 7:00 p.m., saying service had been “temporarily suspended” due to the outage. “We are focused on keeping our riders safe and ensuring emergency personnel have the clear access they need to do their work,” Philion said.

As of Sunday morning there wasn’t yet an update from Waymo on whether the company’s robotaxis were still out of commission, nor on what had caused the problem in the first place. Gizmodo asked Waymo if the vehicles had trouble traversing blacked-out stoplights, or if the issue had something to do with data reception or transmission. We also asked the company if any Waymo vehicles were still blocking the streets. We will update if we hear back.

EDIT

But, like when a San Francisco Waymo fatally ran over a locally famous cat named Kit Kat in October, the issue may be less about Waymos being better or worse than humans in aggregate than the fact that robots fail in unpredictable, alien ways. The actual footage of Kit Kat’s fatal injury shows one such example. A human driver probably wouldn’t do what seems to happen in the video: start from a dead stop while a person is actively trying to coax a cat out from under their car.

EDIT

https://gizmodo.com/blackout-in-san-francisco-litters-streets-with-traffic-blocking-deactivated-waymos-2000702290?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

[Frasier Balzov]

1. Do these robocabs become inoperative

because traffic lights aren't working and there is no way to safely proceed when intersection controls cannot be seen?