This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
Recent disruptions in San Francisco offered investors a real-world stress test for Waymo’s autonomous ride-hailing platform, after a widespread power outage forced multiple driverless vehicles to stop mid-ride across the city. The outage, which stemmed from a fire at a PG&E (NYSE:PCG) substation, knocked out traffic lights at major intersections and at one point affected roughly 130,000 customers during a peak holiday shopping weekend. As stores closed and transit services were interrupted, Waymo vehicles operated by Alphabet Inc. were among the services impacted, with videos circulating online showing cars halted in the roadway with hazard lights flashing.
One rider, Michele Riva, described how his Waymo car continued driving through less crowded streets before stopping abruptly near a dense intersection with non-functioning traffic signals, leaving him without advance notice. As pedestrians crossed freely in the absence of traffic lights, Riva believed the vehicle may have defaulted to a conservative safety posture, possibly struggling to interpret the situation. After waiting several minutes for customer support amid heavy call volumes, he exited the vehicle and walked the remaining distance, later noting that while the experience was unpleasant, the decision to stop may have been driven by safety considerations.
By Sunday morning, PG&E Corp. said power had been restored to about 110,000 customers, with roughly 21,000 still without electricity, while Waymo paused service across at least seven Bay Area cities as teams coordinated with local officials to resume operations. The episode also drew attention from competitors, after Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk posted on X that his companies’ robotaxi services were unaffected by the outage. For investors tracking the autonomous-vehicle race, the incident may highlight how edge-case infrastructure failures could influence operational resilience, regulatory discussions, and relative positioning among emerging robotaxi platforms.
