Police say a teenager is responsible for setting fire to one of Waymo’s self-driving cars during a much-publicized incident in San Francisco earlier this year.
In February, one of Waymo’s autonomous vehicles was defaced and eventually incinerated by an angry mob in San Francisco’s Chinatown. As a video of the incident clearly shows, the car’s destruction was hardly the work of a single individual. Instead, a wild mob can be seen spray painting the car, striking it with skateboards, and just generally abusing it. Amidst the furor, one person could be heard to shout: “Light that shit on fire!”
Eventually, someone did. At some point during the violent melee, a previously unidentified individual had the bright idea to throw a firework inside the car, and the vehicle proceeded to go up like a Roman candle.
The San Francisco Standard now reports that a SFPD Arson Task Force has identified a 14-year-old as the suspect who threw the firework and threw it into the car. The teenager was identified as the result of a search warrant recently served at his residence, and the District Attorney’s Office has now filed charges against them. Due to their age, the person has not been publicly identified.
The car’s fiery demise occurred in February amidst heightened tensions between the city’s autonomous vehicle population and local humans. Indeed, ever since last summer, when the state of California authorized the expanded rollout of commercial robotaxi services in the city, a certain percentage of San Franciscans have treated the vehicles like an invading horde that must be violently repelled. In August of last year, an activist group calling themselves the Safe Street Rebels began obstructing the path of robotaxis with traffic cones out of protest. Then, in September, a man was caught smashing a Cruise taxi’s windshield with a hammer for no apparent reason.
There have also been instances of car-on-human violence. Last October, one of GM Cruise’s self-driving robotaxis ran a woman over and dragged her. The incident subsequently led to the company temporarily shutting down its operations in the city and its CEO later resigned.