On Saturday evening, a Waymo self-driving car was vandalized in San Francisco. According to video footage and eyewitnesses, the vandals spray-painted the car, smashed its windows, and threw fireworks inside. The fireworks caused the vehicle to catch fire, which burned until fire crews arrived to extinguish it.
Fortunately, there were no passengers inside the Waymo vehicle at the time, and no bystanders were harmed. The fire department shared pictures of the charred remains of the autonomous Jaguar I-Pace car, attributing the fire to the fireworks that were thrown into the vehicle.
It’s unclear if something specific triggered the crowd to attack the car or if the incident was planned. Waymo informed Digital Trends that they are cooperating with local safety officials and reassured that their autonomous ridesharing service will continue to operate in the city.
Waymo, owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, has been testing its autonomous cars in San Francisco for several years. Recently, they received permission to start charging passengers as part of a ridesharing trial service.
This incident happened just a week after another Waymo self-driving vehicle collided with a bicycle in San Francisco, resulting in minor injuries to the cyclist. Additionally, in early October, a more severe incident occurred when a Cruise-operated autonomous car, backed by General Motors, ran over a pedestrian after she was struck by a human-driven vehicle. This led to California suspending Cruise’s permit to test autonomous cars in the city, causing the company to halt testing nationwide.
Attacks on Waymo cars have been reported for years, with vandals slashing tires or throwing rocks at them. Concerns about road safety and potential job losses due to the rise of autonomous systems are believed to be behind some of these attacks, although it is not clear what caused Saturday’s incident.