SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) -- City leaders in San Francisco held a hearing Monday to discuss problems with Waymo during a December 20, 2025 PGE power outage. Waymo's high-tech driverless vehicles came to a halt in roadways and intersections more than 1,500 times during the outage. San Francisco Superviso r Jackie Fielder said Waymo vehicles "froze in intersections, blocked traffic, blocked first responders. Systems failed." The blackout impacted traffic lights, which apparently confused driverless cars. It was a chaotic day that some residents are still upset about. Residents participated in a rally on the steps of City Hall on Monday afternoon, calling for Waymo cars to be taken off the road until public safety concerns are addressed. The San Francisco Land Use and Transportation Committee held a hearing to discuss why autonomous vehicles stopped during the power outage. Director of Emergency Management Mary Ellen Carroll said her department was put on hold for 53 minutes while calling Waymo's customer support center during the beginning of the outage. "Our dispatch center did receive multiple reports involving AV’s, and we experienced significant delays in connecting with Waymo," Carroll said. Social media users posted videos of Waymo vehicles encountering traffic lights that were off. Some cars’ hazard lights blinked as they stopped in place, failing to cross intersections. Others halted in the middle of intersections, forcing drivers to swerve around them. A Waymo car is seen driving in San Francisco in October 2025. (KRON4 Photo) Representatives from Waymo addressed concerns and took responsibility for the long wait times experienced by emergency management officials. Sam Cooper, a Waymo program manager of incident response, said the company has worked for the last two months making upgrades so that Waymo vehicles will be able to handle an intersection without traffic lights. Woman gives birth in San Francisco Waymo car "We have rolled out additional fleet-wide updates that give our vehicles even more context about regional outages, allowing them to understand when something like a blackout is occurring," Cooper said. According to Cooper, Waymo has also worked to improve first responder engagement with vehicles by training 1,000 first responders in San Francisco on how to interact with driverless cars.   ...read more read less