Waymo autonomous taxis turns onto Submit Road in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Pictures
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 as a consequence of Nationwide Climate Service flash flood warning,” the notification learn.
Earlier this week the Alphabet-owned firm mentioned it would 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 precipitated a few of its autonomous autos to halt in mid-traffic, contributing to or inflicting gridlock.
The Nationwide Climate Service prolonged a flood look ahead to the whole San Francisco Bay Space via 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 throughout the Christmas vacation on Thursday.
Waymo at the moment 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 increase 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 increase its robotaxi service.
The previous CEO of San Francisco’s Municipal Transit Authority, Jeffrey Tumlin, advised CNBC that regulators and robotaxi firms can take invaluable classes away from the chaos that arose with Waymo autos throughout the PG&E energy outages final week.
“I believe we should 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 steered regulators might need to arrange a staged system that may permit autonomous car firms to quickly scale their operations, offered they meet particular checks.
A type of checks, he mentioned, could be how shortly an organization can get their autonomous autos safely out of the way in which 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 must also search extra knowledge from robotaxi firms concerning the deliberate or precise efficiency of their autos throughout anticipated emergencies corresponding to blackouts, floods or earthquakes, Tumlin mentioned.
