Waymo autonomous taxis turns onto Post Street in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Waymo temporarily paused its robotaxi service in the San Francisco Bay Area on Thursday, ahead of expected storms in the area, according to a customer notification in the company’s driverless ride-hailing app.
“Service temporarily paused due to National Weather Service flash flood warning,” the notification read.
Earlier this week the Alphabet-owned company said it will update its fleet so its robotaxi service is better able to perform during power outages.
On Dec. 20, Waymo paused service during a blackout in San Francisco that left tens of thousands of people in the area without power and caused some of its autonomous vehicles to halt in mid-traffic, contributing to or causing gridlock.
The National Weather Service extended a flood watch for the entire San Francisco Bay Area through Friday 10 p.m. local time.
Waymo didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, or say whether regulators required its service pause on Thursday given the flash flood warnings.
The California Public Utilities Commission — which regulates driverless ride-hailing services in the state — did not immediately respond to requests for information during the Christmas holiday on Thursday.
Waymo currently operates a commercial, driverless service in five U.S. markets, up from three at the end of 2024. Waymo’s robotaxi service has been operating in Austin, the San Francisco Bay Area, Phoenix, Atlanta and Los Angeles this year. The company intends to significantly expand its service area across and beyond the U.S. in 2026, CNBC previously reported.
Waymo is facing increased public scrutiny and safety concerns as it attempts to expand its robotaxi service.
The former CEO of San Francisco’s Municipal Transit Authority, Jeffrey Tumlin, told CNBC that regulators and robotaxi companies can take valuable lessons away from the chaos that arose with Waymo vehicles during the PG&E power outages last week.
“I think we need to be asking ‘what is a reasonable number of [autonomous vehicles] to have on city streets, by time of day, by geography and weather?'” Tumlin said. He also suggested regulators may want to set up a staged system that will allow autonomous vehicle companies to rapidly scale their operations, provided they meet specific tests.
One of those tests, he said, would be how quickly a company can get their autonomous vehicles safely out of the way of traffic if they encounter something that is confusing like a four-way intersection with no functioning traffic lights.
Cities and regulators should also seek more data from robotaxi companies about the planned or actual performance of their vehicles during expected emergencies such as blackouts, floods or earthquakes, Tumlin said.
