Additional Coverage:
- Waymo’s robotaxis didn’t know what to do when a city’s traffic lights failed (digitaltrends.com)
San Francisco Blackout Stalls Waymo Robotaxis, Exposing Autonomous Vehicle Challenges
San Francisco experienced widespread disruption on Saturday when a major power outage, triggered by a fire at a PG&E substation, left approximately 130,000 residents without electricity and plunged numerous traffic lights into darkness. Amidst the chaos, Waymo’s fleet of autonomous robotaxis faced significant challenges, halting at affected intersections and contributing to the city’s already snarled traffic.
The outage, which began shortly after noon on Saturday, prompted Waymo to temporarily suspend its ride-hailing services across the San Francisco Bay Area. In a statement, the company acknowledged the situation, noting, “Our teams are working diligently and in close coordination with city officials, and we are hopeful to bring our services back online soon.”
By Sunday morning, power had been restored to roughly three-quarters of the affected San Francisco customers, and Waymo began the process of resuming its robotaxi operations. In a follow-up statement, Waymo emphasized its commitment to adaptability: “While the failure of the utility infrastructure was significant, we are committed to ensuring our technology adjusts to traffic flow during such events… We are focused on rapidly integrating the lessons learned from this event, and are committed to earning and maintaining the trust of the communities we serve every day.”
The incident brought to light a potential vulnerability in Waymo’s autonomous technology, particularly its ability to navigate unmapped changes like non-functional traffic signals. While Waymo stated that its “Driver” technology is designed to treat non-functional signals as four-way stops, the sheer scale of the outage led to instances where vehicles remained stationary longer than usual to confirm the state of affected intersections, exacerbating traffic congestion.
The situation did not go unnoticed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who reportedly took to social media to state that “Tesla robotaxis were unaffected by the SF power outage.” This comment highlights a key difference between the two companies’ autonomous driving approaches.
Tesla’s current robotaxis operate with a safety driver who can intervene, and their system relies on neural networks processing camera feeds to make human-like decisions in novel scenarios, potentially giving them an edge in handling unexpected events like traffic light outages. In contrast, Waymo’s fully autonomous vehicles, which operate without a human driver, utilize a combination of LiDAR, radar, and high-definition maps.
The weekend’s events suggest that while robust, this system may struggle with unmapped disruptions that alter the expected streetscape.
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- Waymo’s robotaxis didn’t know what to do when a city’s traffic lights failed (digitaltrends.com)