Waymos Stall During SF Blackout & Avatar Fizzles at the Box Office
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, when the going gets tough, Waymo stops working.
Then the third Avatar movie made a lot of money, but not as much money as expected.
What happened with Waymo cars during the San Francisco blackout?
It's Monday, December 22nd. Let's ride. Let's ride.
Good morning and happy Monday.
Why did the new Avatar movie underperform at the box office?
Give yourself a pat on the back because you've made it through the darkest timeline. Yesterday in the northern hemisphere was the winter solstice, marking the astronomical start of winter and the shortest day of the year in terms of daylight. There will now be a little more sunshine every single day until June, so that's something to look forward to. And one of these years, I got to make it to Stonehenge for the solstice celebration. Thousands of people dressed as pagans and druids make the pilgrimage to the stone circle every summer and winter since the monument was built to align with the movement of the sun on the solstices.
I think you could pull off being a druid, Neil, or a pagan, either or. We are so back, though. I looked this up. Amongst the middle-est latitudes, a.k.a. not near the poles, we are getting an extra... 20 to 30 seconds of daylight now that the solstice has passed, which is plenty of time for activities. I'm talking one additional golf swing depending on your pre-shot. Maybe two points in pickleball if you have a good serve. And I think you could get an entire ski run in if you don't turn. I don't recommend that, though. So make sure you budget that additional time effectively. We've made it through the darkest timeline. And now a word from our sponsor, Public. All right, Neil, big milestone. I opened an account with Public.
How did the winter solstice impact daily life in the northern hemisphere?
Incredibly responsible of you, Toby. I'm impressed.
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It was a scene from a dystopian novel. Large swaths of a major American city suffering a power blackout. Traffic lights were down. Hundreds of self-driving robot cars malfunctioned in the middle of the street, creating gridlock. But this wasn't science fiction. It was San Francisco on Saturday. A power blackout hit around 125,000 homes and businesses in SF, impacting about a third of the city due to a fire at a substation at Pacific Gas and Electric Company. But this being 2025 in the most tech-forward U.S. metropolis, the blackout had some bizarre knock-on effects, like rendering Waymo's self-driving cars inoperable. On Saturday, people shared tons of viral videos of Waymo's stalled out at busy intersections, one after another, causing major traffic jams behind them.
As of last night, Waymo had resumed its robotaxi service, but the reputational damage was done. The company said that its problems stemmed from all the traffic lights going down. A spokesperson said, while the Waymo driver is designed to treat non-functional signals as four-way stops, the sheer scale of the outage led to instances where vehicles remained stationary longer than usual to confirm the state of the affected intersections. This contributed to traffic friction during the height of the congestion. It's not a good look for a startup that was just starting to win hearts and minds in San Francisco and beyond after working hard to overcome initial skepticism from human drivers. Toby, this debacle will only fuel the critics who say robo taxis aren't ready for prime time.
The debacle is even more confusing because Waymo vehicles are explicitly designed to handle traffic.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:14
2
What happened with Waymo cars during the San Francisco blackout?
0:14–0:24
3
Why did the new Avatar movie underperform at the box office?
0:24–1:39
4
How did the winter solstice impact daily life in the northern hemisphere?
1:39–12:26
5
What are the implications of Waymo's robotaxi service issues?
12:26–25:03
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Morning Brew Daily
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