Alphabet’s autonomous driving unit, Waymo, is launching a fleet-wide software update and revising its emergency protocols following a chaotic weekend in San Francisco. A massive power outage on Saturday led to dozens of robotaxis stalling, further complicating traffic in a city already struggling with a blackout.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!The Problem: A “Backlog” of Safety Checks
On Saturday, a fire at a PG&E substation cut power to 130,000 residents. This knocked out traffic lights across one-third of the city. While Waymo vehicles are programmed to treat dark signals as four-way stops, they often request a “confirmation check” from human remote operators before proceeding in high-uncertainty situations.
- The Scale: Waymo’s fleet successfully navigated 7,000 dark signals, but the sheer volume of dead lights triggered a massive spike in requests for human help.
- The Result: The system couldn’t keep up with the requests, creating a backlog. Vehicles sat idle at intersections with hazard lights on, blocking traffic and causing gridlock.
The Solution: “Decisive” Navigation
Waymo resumed service on Sunday and is now pushing an update to ensure this doesn’t happen again:
- Contextual Awareness: The cars will now be given “specific power outage context.” This allows the AI to understand that a dark light is part of a larger infrastructure failure, letting it navigate intersections more decisively without waiting for human permission.
- Scale Adjustments: Waymo admitted that while human-confirmation protocols worked during early testing, they must be refined to handle the company’s current fleet size and city-wide events.
Increasing Regulatory Scrutiny
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is currently reviewing the incident. This outage is just the latest in a string of recent hurdles for the company:
- School Bus Safety: Earlier this month, Waymo issued a software recall after vehicles in Texas illegally passed school buses 19 times.
- Federal Investigation: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened an official probe into the school bus incidents in October.
Waymo currently operates over 2,500 vehicles across cities including San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Austin, and Atlanta.
