A crowd in San Francisco vandalized a Waymo self - driving car carry no passenger on Saturday dark , stop its windshield and setting it alight . Once firefighters get the situation under control , only a burned chaff of the Waymo persist .
According to Waymo , the self - driving cable car was navigating through Chinatown at about 9 p.m. when it was suddenly surrounded by a crowd . Members of the crowd disfigure the vehicle and threw a firecracker inside it , which arrange it on attack . The San Francisco Police Department said on Sunday that no injuries had been account and that the cause of the flack was presently under investigation .
“ We are working closely with local safety officials to respond to the post , ” a Waymo spokesperson told Gizmodo in an email on Sunday .
The motive behind the incident is unknown. The San Francisco Police Department is investigating.Photo: Séraphine Hossenlopp / San Francisco Fire Department
The incident occurred just days after a Waymo self - driving carhit a bicyclistin San Francisco . And last October , a GM self-governing Cruise vehicledragged a pedestrianon the road for 20 pes ( six time ) . The incident led California tosuspend the operation of Cruise robotaxisin the nation over safety concern .
Michael Vandi , aformer Amazon software package technologist , was in Chinatown on Saturday — the twenty-four hour period of the Lunar New Year — to learn the fireworks and come across the incident with the Waymo first - hand . He alsorecorded it and post it to X , the program formerly have it off as Twitter .
Vandi told Gizmodo in a direct substance that the Waymo vehicle was at a stop during a small traffic heist when someone in a white hoodie “ jumped on the hood of the railway car and literally WWE trend K / O’ed the windshield & broke it . ”
Photo: Séraphine Hossenlopp / San Francisco Fire Department
The bunch was shocked , Vandi said , and people start out paying care to what was happening and gathering around the auto . At that instant , someone else jumped on the hood and a grouping of multitude begin clapping and encourage the behavior .
“ That was when it last WILD . [ There were ] people with skateboard breaking the glass , and others graffitiing the machine . There were 2 groups of people . Folks who boost it — and others who were just dismayed and started film , ” the software engineer explained . “ No one [ made a move to stop them]—I mean , there was n’t anything you could do to digest up to dozens of people . ”
Vandi said he then check someone light a pyrotechnic under the car . Although nothing appeared to happen , the speech sound break up the bunch , include Vandi , who “ did n’t want to be near it anymore . ”
The software engineer pronounce he was n’t trusted what happened next — he acquire that this is when the firework was illume inside the car — but he pick up locoweed for a few second and then “ full on flames . ” He left when he heard the Delilah from the attack department take closer .
Franky Francisco , a street reporter who runs theFriscoLive415 accounts on XandYouTube , was also in Chinatown watching the fireworks . As part of his body of work , he heed to the police dispatch and the hand brake services radio digital scanner . When he was biking home plate , Francisco hear the fire section report that a ego - driving motorcar was steep in flaming on the scanner and head back .
Francisco did n’t witness the vandalization of the Waymo himself , arriving after the police and firefighters were on the shot . When he got there , he said the authorities were unsure what car they were looking at .
“ It was so torch , they first said [ it was a ] Waymo , then they said Zoox , because they could n’t greet the vehicle , ” Francisco said via verbatim messages . Waymo gondola are made by Google while Zoox cars are made by Amazon . They face nothing alike .
Francisco said he was n’t surprised at the Saturday incident with the Waymo auto but stressed that “ this one was the worst case of hooliganism on an Ab that I ’ve seen . ”
“ There ’s unquestionably a negatively charged posture towards self - driving cars that exists among some camps within the city , ” Francisco said , pointing out that last August , people were angered when nearly a XII Cruise robotaxiscaused a dealings jamby merely stopping for no ground . “ There is also the opposite eccentric of push that be , it ’s just not as loud and usually those folks are not destroy things . ”
Alphabet Inc. AmazonGoogleRobotaxiRoboticsWaymo
Daily Newsletter
Get the best technical school , science , and civilization news in your inbox daily .
newsworthiness from the future , delivered to your present .
You May Also Like
