Overview
- Waymo told KTVU it temporarily paused Bay Area rides due to a National Weather Service flash flood warning and later brought service back online under its safety protocols.
- Customer alerts in the app flagged the pause as the National Weather Service extended a flood watch for the region through Friday evening.
- The move follows a Dec. 20 PG&E substation fire that cut power to about one-third of San Francisco and darkened traffic signals.
- During that outage, multiple Waymo vehicles stalled at dark intersections, videos showed, prompting congestion and fresh safety questions from local officials and the public.
- Waymo says it is rolling out a fleet-wide software update and revised procedures to help cars navigate regional outages without overloading remote assistance, even as it operates robotaxis in five U.S. markets.