San Francisco Power Outage Exposes Waymo Robotaxi Gaps

A widespread electrical failure in San Francisco that resulted in Waymo robotaxis halting and causing traffic congestion earlier this month has sparked concerns regarding the preparedness of autonomous vehicle operators to address major emergencies such as earthquakes and floods, news agency Reuters has reported.

Driverless taxis from Alphabet unit Waymo, an omnipresent feature on the city's roads, became immobilised at junctions with their hazard lights activated as traffic signals ceased functioning following a fire at a PG&E substation that eliminated power to approximately one-third of the city on 20th December, videos posted on social media demonstrated. Waymo suspended operations, resuming a day later.

The incident has revived demands for more stringent regulation of the emerging but rapidly expanding industry as other companies including Tesla, and Amazon's Zoox compete to expand robotaxi services in multiple cities.

"If you get a response to a blackout wrong, regulators are derelict if they do not respond to that by requiring some sort of proof that the earthquake scenario will be handled properly," Philip Koopman, a Carnegie Mellon University computer-engineering professor and autonomous-technology expert, was quoted as saying by Reuters.

In a statement on Tuesday, Waymo indicated that whilst its robotaxis are engineered to treat non-operational traffic signals as four-way stops, they occasionally request a confirmation check. Though the vehicles successfully navigated more than 7,000 darkened signals on Saturday, "the outage created a concentrated spike" in confirmation requests that "led to response delays contributing to congestion on already-overwhelmed streets," Waymo said.

Robotaxi operators globally employ remote access by humans -- known in the industry as "teleoperation" -- in varying degrees to monitor and control vehicles. Waymo, for instance, maintains a team of human "fleet response" agents who respond to questions from the Waymo Driver, its bot, when it encounters a particular situation.

However, such remote assistance has its constraints, and the Waymo outage emphasises the necessity to regulate how robotaxi operators utilise the technology, stated Missy Cummings, director of the George Mason University Autonomy and Robotics Center and former adviser to the U.S. road safety regulator.

"The whole point of having remote operations is for humans to be there when the system is not responsive in the way it should be," she said. 

"The federal government needs to regulate remote operations," Cummings said. "They need to make sure that there's backup remote operations when there's some kind of catastrophic failure."

California's Department of Motor Vehicles and the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulate and issue permits for the testing and commercial deployment of robotaxis, have stated they are investigating the incident.

The DMV indicated it was consulting with Waymo and other autonomous vehicle manufacturers about actions related to emergency response. It also stated it was formulating regulations to ensure remote drivers "meet high standards for safety, accountability and responsiveness."

Deploying and commercialising fully autonomous vehicles have proved more challenging than anticipated with substantial investments to ensure the technology is safe and public opposition after collisions forcing many to cease operations.

Following a high-profile accident in 2023 when a robotaxi from General Motors' Cruise dragged a pedestrian, regulators revoked its permit, eventually leading the company to halt operations.