Al Root
Tesla's robo-taxi battle with Alphabet's Waymo took an odd twist over the weekend.
A power outage in San Francisco on Sunday left about 130,000 homes and businesses in the dark. It also left Waymo's robo-taxis seemingly stalled in the streets, waiting for traffic lights that weren't available.
Tesla shares were up 1% Monday at $486.50, while S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up 0.4% and 0.1%, respectively.
Waymo paused its service amid the blackout, according to reports. The company didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk took the opportunity to point out on his social-media platform X that Tesla robo-taxis were unaffected by the power outage.
Tesla is testing robo-taxis with safety drivers in the front driver's seat in the city.
Tesla launched its robo-taxi service in Austin, Texas, in June with safety monitors in the front passenger seat. Waymo operates in five cities today, with no safety drivers or monitors, completing more than 450,000 fully autonomous cab rides a week.
Exactly why Waymo vehicles stopped functioning isn't immediately clear. To be sure, Waymo vehicles are aware of city traffic infrastructure and might have some logic embedded in their system that prevents them from essentially running through an intersection where they know a light should be.
Tesla's robo-taxi technology is built on its Full Self-Driving driver-assistance system, which will keep driving, paying attention to its surroundings, even when the lights are not working.
The incident highlights some of the differences between the two robo-taxi competitors. Waymo started as a robo-taxi service, mapping city streets, and using a suite of expensive sensors, including lidar, which is essentially laser-based radar. Tesla started with advanced driver-assistance technology for passenger cars that relies on optical cameras.
The San Francisco outage probably won't be the definitive battle in the robo-taxi wars. It is just one incident that demonstrates the technology approach of two leaders in the space.
Alphabet stock was up 0.7% in premarket trading Monday at $309.32.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
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December 22, 2025 07:21 ET (12:21 GMT)
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