Waymo Updates Vehicles to Better Handle Power Outages - But Still Faces Criticism

Waymo explained this week that its self-driving car technology is already 'designed to handle dark traffic signals,' and successfully handled over 7,000 last Saturday during San Francisco's long power outage, properly treating those intersections as four-way stops. But while during the long outage their cars sometimes experienced a 'backlog' when waiting for confirmation checks (leading them to freeze in intersections), Waymo said Tuesday they're implementing 'fleet-wide updates' to provide their self-driving cars 'specific power outage context, allowing it to navigate more decisively.'

Ironically, two days later Waymo paused their service again in San Francisco. But this time it was due to a warning from the National Weather Service about a powerful storm bringing the possibility of flash flooding and power outages, reports CNBC. They add that 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.' And they also note Waymo still faces criticism over last Saturday's incident:

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.

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