Waymo temporarily paused its robotaxi service in San Francisco for about one hour due to a power outage affecting approximately 7,000 PG&E customers. The company communicated to riders that freeway routes were unavailable and assessed the situation in collaboration with local officials. This incident echoes previous outages that disrupted Waymo services, prompting San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie to advocate for stricter state regulations on autonomous vehicle operations during similar incidents.

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In Brief

Posted:

12:30 PM PDT · July 18, 2026

Image Credits: Heather Diehl / Getty Images / Heather Diehl/Getty Images

Anthony Ha

Waymo says San Francisco service has resumed after one-hour pause

Waymo says robotaxi service has resumed after it made “temporary adjustments” 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 told SF customers that service was “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.”

Following the initial publication of this article, a Waymo spokesperson added that the company “decided to pause service for approx. one hour to assess the scale of the power outage affecting a large portion of San Francisco and coordinate with local officials.”

Power outages have affected Waymo service in the past, for example when a number of Waymo vehicles stalled on city streets during a blackout in December, and when 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.”

This post has been updated with additional comment from Waymo reflecting that service has resumed.

Topics

Government & Policy, Transportation, Waymo

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