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A crowd swarmed a Waymo self-driving car in San Francisco on Saturday night, pummeling the vehicle with cans, a skateboard, and eventually setting it on fire. Footage of the incident was captured and posted on social media by Michael Vandi, Chief Shipping Officer of cloud AI firm Addy AI. Itâs a wild scene, emblematic of the ever-growing hostility between San Francisco residents and the big tech companies that use the cityâs public streets as a testing ground for self-driving cars. A Waymo spokesperson said in a statement to Motherboard that nobody was hurt in the incident. âAt approximately 9 PM on Saturday, February 10th, a fully autonomous Waymo vehicle was navigating through San Francisco when a crowd surrounded and vandalized the vehicle, breaking the window and throwing a firework inside, which set the vehicle on fire,â the spokesperson wrote. âThe vehicle was not transporting any riders and no injuries have been reported. We are working closely with local safety officials to respond to the situation.â
Waymo claimed that the car was stopped by a street performance that stalled traffic on the road, at which point the crowd focused on the driverless car.The presence of self-driving cars in the city has been controversial. Last week, a Waymo vehicle struck a cyclist, leading to minor injuries and sparking a regulatory review. Waymo, which is owned by Google parent company Alphabet, said that the person was âoccludedâ by another vehicle. Other self-driving car incidents in San Francisco have been more severe. In October, a woman who was hit by a human-driven car fell into the path of a Cruise driverless vehicle which dragged her 20 feet. Cruise initially omitted this in its description of the incident to Californiaâs DMV, prompting the agency to suspend the companyâs license. Saturdayâs outpouring of public rage and the shocking images that resulted are hardly surprising. There have been numerous incidents of people attacking self-driving cars in recent years as they become more visible and the incidents where people are harmed stack up. In 2018, police in Arizona recorded 21 incidents where people attacked Waymo self-driving cars, including by slashing their tires. In 2022, also in Arizona, an angry pedestrian punctured the windshield, injuring the safety driver. Negative sentiment toward tech companies has been percolating in San Francisco specifically as their influence has become inescapable. In 2018, charter buses for workers at Google and Apple were vandalized with objects which may have been rocks or even pellet guns. Update: This article was updated with comment from Waymo.
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Waymo claimed that the car was stopped by a street performance that stalled traffic on the road, at which point the crowd focused on the driverless car.The presence of self-driving cars in the city has been controversial. Last week, a Waymo vehicle struck a cyclist, leading to minor injuries and sparking a regulatory review. Waymo, which is owned by Google parent company Alphabet, said that the person was âoccludedâ by another vehicle. Other self-driving car incidents in San Francisco have been more severe. In October, a woman who was hit by a human-driven car fell into the path of a Cruise driverless vehicle which dragged her 20 feet. Cruise initially omitted this in its description of the incident to Californiaâs DMV, prompting the agency to suspend the companyâs license. Saturdayâs outpouring of public rage and the shocking images that resulted are hardly surprising. There have been numerous incidents of people attacking self-driving cars in recent years as they become more visible and the incidents where people are harmed stack up. In 2018, police in Arizona recorded 21 incidents where people attacked Waymo self-driving cars, including by slashing their tires. In 2022, also in Arizona, an angry pedestrian punctured the windshield, injuring the safety driver. Negative sentiment toward tech companies has been percolating in San Francisco specifically as their influence has become inescapable. In 2018, charter buses for workers at Google and Apple were vandalized with objects which may have been rocks or even pellet guns. Update: This article was updated with comment from Waymo.