A self-driving Waymo car was vandalized and set on fire by a group of people in San Francisco city of the US. The vandalism of Waymo robotaxi took place in Chinatown area on Saturday (February 10) night. Multiple videos of a group of people damaging the driverless car surfaced on X (formerly Twitter). A firework was reportedly hurled inside the car after which it went up in flames.
Owned by Google's parent company Alphabet, Waymo is an autonomous driving technology company. One of their driverless car was set ablaze by a crowd when Chinatown was bustling as people celebrated Lunar New Year. Videos from the spot showed people smashing the car's windows and scrawling graffiti before the vehicle was set on fire.
One of the videos, shared by software engineer Michael Vandi, showed a person using a skateboard to damage the white Jaguar's windows. Another clip captured a person writing on the car's side.
Waymo Reacts To Vandalism:
Providing details of what had happened, a spokesperson from Waymo told news agency AFP: "A crowd surrounded and vandalised the vehicle, breaking the window and throwing a firework inside, which set the vehicle on fire." "The vehicle was not transporting any riders. We are working closely with local safety officials to respond to the situation," the spokesperson added.
After the fire was doused, the Waymo car was complete gutted. The motive behind the attack remains unclear. Anger is rising against operations of driverless cars since a woman was badly injured after a self-driving Cruise car, owned by General Motors, hit her in downtown San Francisco. While Cruise has suspended its robotaxi operations, Waymo is working to expand its services in the US.
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