Over the weekend, a dramatic stress test hit the autonomous vehicle industry.
It wasn’t through an algorithmic breakthrough, regulatory shift, or consumer trend.
Instead, it was through a major and surprise power outage in San Francisco.
Roughly 130,000 customers lost electricity in the city after a fire at a Pacific Gas & Electric substation, and the resulting blackout had serious ripple effects on urban infrastructure.
Among the many and obvious difficulties this created, it was self-driving cars that stole the show.
Here’s how it effects your investment approach and how it fits into our C.A.R.B.S. trades.
Let’s dive in.
Waymo’s Robotaxis: Brilliant Tech Meets Real-World Fragility
Waymo, a top fully autonomous ride-hailing platform, saw its fleet of robotaxis stall at intersections and block traffic, unable to proceed when infrastructure systems failed.
While some of us find it amusing, it’s a dark depiction of a future of self-driving vehicles.
Yes, a city-wide blackout is a major black swan event for those vehicles, but it still draws attention to a massive issue as more and more companies adopt self-driving.
Blackouts, one-off events, dark intersections, anything out of the ordinary could leave passengers stranded.
Videos shared widely on social media showed autonomous vehicles halted in the middle of streets, their safety systems triggering a halt in the absence of functioning signals — essentially frozen by darkness.
This episode highlights a core tension in robotics today: AI autonomy can be extraordinary in controlled settings, but it remains highly dependent on external systems like power grids and traffic infrastructure.
When those systems fail, or are absent, fully autonomous software has limited fallback strategies.
But not all systems are the same…
A Leader Amidst the Chaos
Tesla leveraged this moment to underscore a contrasting narrative.
Its own robotaxi efforts — which currently rely on supervised autonomy rather than fully driverless operation — were not impacted in the same way.
CEO Elon Musk pointed out that Tesla’s vehicles, with human oversight, were able to continue operating without the grid’s help.
Waymo’s systems aim for full autonomy (Level 4+), with the promise of cars that navigate complex urban terrains without a human present.
In a blackout scenario, Waymo failed while Tesla passed. It’s cut and dry at this point.
While it is too early to crown a winner in the ultimate race of robotics and autonomous vehicles, there’s a clear leader – Tesla.
In the next decade of robotics and AI evolution, resilience may matter as much as autonomy.
At least for investors.
And that should shape how we think about winners and losers in this emerging arena.
Trade Smart,
S.E.A.L. Alpha Team
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