Waymo autonomous taxis turns onto Publish Avenue in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Photos
Waymo quickly paused its robotaxi service within the San Francisco Bay Space on Thursday, forward of anticipated storms within the space, in response to a buyer notification within the firm’s driverless ride-hailing app.
“Service quickly paused attributable to Nationwide Climate Service flash flood warning,” the notification learn.
Earlier this week the Alphabet-owned firm mentioned it’s going to replace its fleet so its robotaxi service is healthier capable of carry out throughout energy outages.
On Dec. 20, Waymo paused service throughout a blackout in San Francisco that left tens of hundreds of individuals within the space with out energy and triggered a few of its autonomous automobiles to halt in mid-traffic, contributing to or inflicting gridlock.
The Nationwide Climate Service prolonged a flood look ahead to the complete San Francisco Bay Space by means of Friday 10 p.m. native time.
Waymo did not instantly reply to a request for remark, or say whether or not regulators required its service pause on Thursday given the flash flood warnings.
The California Public Utilities Fee — which regulates driverless ride-hailing companies within the state — didn’t instantly reply to requests for info through the Christmas vacation on Thursday.
Waymo at present operates a business, driverless service in 5 U.S. markets, up from three on the finish of 2024. Waymo’s robotaxi service has been working in Austin, the San Francisco Bay Space, Phoenix, Atlanta and Los Angeles this 12 months. The corporate intends to considerably broaden its service space throughout and past the U.S. in 2026, CNBC beforehand reported.
Waymo is dealing with elevated public scrutiny and security issues because it makes an attempt to broaden its robotaxi service.
The previous CEO of San Francisco’s Municipal Transit Authority, Jeffrey Tumlin, advised CNBC that regulators and robotaxi firms can take precious classes away from the chaos that arose with Waymo automobiles through the PG&E energy outages final week.
“I believe we have to be asking ‘what’s an affordable variety of [autonomous vehicles] to have on metropolis streets, by time of day, by geography and climate?'” Tumlin mentioned. He additionally instructed regulators could need to arrange a staged system that can permit autonomous automobile firms to quickly scale their operations, supplied they meet particular assessments.
A type of assessments, he mentioned, can be how shortly an organization can get their autonomous automobiles safely out of the best way of site visitors in the event that they encounter one thing that’s complicated like a four-way intersection with no functioning site visitors lights.
Cities and regulators also needs to search extra information from robotaxi firms concerning the deliberate or precise efficiency of their automobiles throughout anticipated emergencies corresponding to blackouts, floods or earthquakes, Tumlin mentioned.
