A temporary power outage in San Francisco left hundreds of Google’s self-driving vehicles – Waymo stranded on roads. Many users shared videos and photos of the cars stalled in traffic in different parts of the city. Amid the disruption, Elon Musk posted on X (formerly Twitter), writing “Tesla Robotaxis were unaffected by the SF power outage”. The Tesla CEO quoted a post by X user Mario Nawfal which said that Teslas kept rolling as the vehicles’ AI is trained on “billions of real-world miles”. “Waymo bet on maps and order. Tesla bet on mess – and won,” Nawfal added.For those unaware, a massive blackout affected over 130,000 homes and businesses in San Francisco including the Richmond, Sunset, Presidio and Golden Gate Park. Officials traced that a portion of Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) substation caught fire, knocking out critical grid components, leading to “significant transit disruptions.”
San Francisco power outage : Waymo vs Tesla
Mario Nawfal shared two different videos in his post – one showing Waymo stranded on the road and the other a dashcam footage from a Tesla vehicle using Full Self-Driving (FSD) mode. “Waymo’s robotaxis got a little too real last night – by completely shutting down when San Francisco’s power outage knocked out traffic lights,” he writes in the post. “Meanwhile, Teslas on FSD? Kept rolling. No drama, no headlines – just handling chaos like it’s a walk in the park. This is what happens when you train your AI on billions of real-world miles instead of coddling it in a simulation padded with perfect data and wishful thinking. Waymo bet on maps and order. Tesla bet on mess – and won. When the lights go out, the difference isn’t theoretical. It’s traffic.” Nawfal tagged TeslaAI and Elon Musk as the source in his post. The Tesla dashcam video was shared by Tesla AI with the caption – “FSD is trained on billions of real-world miles, including power outages”.
Waymo resumes services in San Francisco Bay Area
Waymo said it has resumed its driverless ride-hail service in the San Francisco Bay Area. Waymo spokesperson, Suzanne Philion, told CNBC in an e-mailed statement “Yesterday’s power outage was a widespread event that caused gridlock across San Francisco, with non-functioning traffic signals and transit disruptions”. “While the failure of the utility infrastructure was significant, we are committed to ensuring our technology adjusts to traffic flow during such events,” she added.
