A power outage has reportedly caused multiple driverless taxis operated by Waymo to stop suddenly and cut out, leaving vehicles stationary on public roads.
Footage shared by NBC News on TikTok shows the autonomous vehicles pulling over and becoming unresponsive after the outage affected traffic infrastructure and communication systems. According to the report, the vehicles entered a safety shutdown mode once they lost access to key systems required to operate safely.
While Waymo vehicles are designed to prioritise safety, the incident has reignited questions around how fully driverless taxis cope when unexpected events such as power failures occur.
The NBC News footage indicates that the power cut disrupted signals relied upon by the autonomous fleet, prompting the vehicles to stop rather than continue operating without full system confidence. This appears to be a built-in failsafe rather than a malfunction, but it resulted in multiple cars coming to a halt at the same time.
Although no injuries were reported, the situation highlights how dependent autonomous taxi services are on wider infrastructure beyond the vehicle itself.
DM News Commentary: What This Means for the Taxi & Private Hire Trade
For UK taxi and private hire drivers, this incident underlines a key difference between human-driven vehicles and fully autonomous systems.
A licensed driver faced with a power outage or signal failure would usually be able to continue safely, reroute, or assist passengers directly. With no driver onboard, passengers in a driverless taxi are entirely reliant on remote systems and emergency responses.
This raises several important questions for the future of driverless taxis:
- What happens if a passenger is vulnerable, unwell, or needs urgent assistance?
- How long could passengers be left stranded if multiple vehicles stop at once?
- Who takes responsibility if vehicles block roads or create congestion?
While driverless technology continues to advance, incidents like this show why many in the taxi trade believe human drivers will remain essential, particularly for reliability, accountability, and passenger reassurance.
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