Dead Waymo Robotaxi Batteries Left Cars Stranded In San Francisco Traffic Jam

Over the Fourth of July weekend, residents of San Francisco, California gathered around the city to enjoy elaborate fireworks displays. Once the patriotic festivities concluded, however, these residents gathered once again... in traffic. As if a mass exodus from such an event wasn't bad enough, a number of Waymo robotaxis made conditions much worse. Multiple news reports and social media posts showed these autonomous electric taxis adding to the traffic after the batteries were exhausted and the car stopped dead in the middle of the road, leading to a massive, hours-long gridlock.

Numerous social media videos began to circulate following the city's fireworks display of Waymo taxis lined up at a standstill along large stretches of road, as well as stopped in the middle of intersections packed with pedestrians. Not only did these stalled-out Waymos worsen an already severe gridlock, but in two particular cases, a poor autonomous response to an errant firework on the road resulted in Waymo vehicles catching fire.

As all of the vehicles attempted to make headway through the traffic jam, the Waymo vehicles apparently began exhausting their batteries completely and stopping in the middle of the road. Pedestrians on the scene, as well as drivers and passengers in normal cars, noticed that the Waymo vehicles had been sitting still for as long as 20 minutes, with angry drivers getting out of their vehicles to yell at them only to find no drivers present. It would take several hours until Waymo employees and local authorities, particularly the fire department, were able to successfully enter the jam and get the vehicles out of the way.

In addition to this mass failure, reports were made of Waymo vehicles catching fire due to driving over small fireworks launched by a nearby pedestrian. In a statement to NBC Bay Area, one Waymo passenger, Rose Peterson, explained how a man was launching small fireworks into the street, which her Waymo drove right over and caught fire. Fortunately, she was able to get out of the vehicle without trouble, and no one was hurt. However, this was not an isolated incident, with another Waymo without passengers reported to have driven over another random firework and similarly caught fire.

Unfortunately, these Fourth of July incidents highlight a series of ongoing problems that Waymo vehicles have had when it comes to expecting the unexpected. Over the course of 2026, multiple reports of Waymo vehicles behaving in erratic or unsafe manners have been made around the United States, including driving dangerously fast in circles in Atlanta, Georgia, blocking bike lanes in Denver, Colorado, and entering closed-off construction zones on freeways. With these consistent errors and failures, some more dangerous than others, some United States cities, such as New York City, have decided to keep Waymo off their streets entirely, at least until all of the bugs can be definitively worked out.

It's also worth noting that this latest disruption is not the only Waymo-centric problem to hit San Francisco specifically. In December 2025, during a mass power outage in the city, a large swath of Waymo vehicles became disabled in the streets without traffic signals to follow, worsening an already-severe road congestion.