Waymo’s Disaster Helps Tesla

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Dec 22, 9:15AM EST

24/7 Wall St. Key Points

An incident during the recent blackout in San Francisco has harmed Waymo’s image as the self-driving leader.
Elon Musk took the opportunity to boast about Tesla’s self-driving technology.

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Waymo’s Disaster Helps Tesla — © Tesla Model S Interior (CC BY-SA 4.0) by Peteratkins

Waymo, the Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL | GOOGL Price Prediction) autonomous driving operation, is widely considered the leader in the advance of self-driving car technology. Many believe its product is ahead of those of Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA), GM, and Ford. Waymo-powered cars have logged over 100 million “fully autonomous miles.” It now operates, or will soon, in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta, Miami, District of Columbia, and Dallas. It also has limited tests in Tokyo.

An incident during the recent blackout in San Francisco shattered Waymo’s image. According to The New York Times, “Waymo Suspended Service in San Francisco After Its Cars Stalled During Power Outage.” The vehicles stopped when traffic lights went out. Fortunately, that resulted in no injuries.

Tesla is betting heavily on its own self-driving technology. CEO Elon Musk posted on X, “SAN FRAN BLACKOUT – WAYMO FROZE, TESLA DROVE Waymo’s robotaxis got a little too real last night – by completely shutting down when San Francisco’s power outage knocked out traffic lights.”

Tesla claims it will be the leader in the sector, despite skeptics whose opinions have largely been fueled by Waymo’s success. Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving (FSD)” is already in a number of its vehicles. However, to use it, drivers must keep their eyes on the road. Tesla’s first test of its self-driving robotaxi started in Austin early this year. Tesla plans to move into San Francisco, then to begin testing in Las Vegas, Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, and Miami.

It is an open question whether the Waymo problem is part of a temporary defect in its product. Yet, it would be hard to find an incident that would hurt it more or help Tesla’s chances, at least in the court of public opinion and among some experts.

Musk has repeatedly bragged that no one can match his autonomous vehicle technology. Waymo had undermined that claim. According to CNBC, “Alphabet-owned Waymo kept expanding and dominated the robotaxi market in the U.S., though rivals Tesla and Amazon-owned Zoox also launched the first versions of their services in 2025.”

Musk’s comments about its self-driving future have been part of the rise in its share price since April. Waymo has given investors another reason to buy Tesla shares.

Tesla Stock Price Prediction and Forecast 2025–2030

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.