Waymo vehicles, the self-driving taxis from Google parent company Alphabet, have emerged as a literal flashpoint in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement protests in Los Angeles, which ramped up heavily over the weekend. The protests against the president’s immigration crackdown in the city began on Friday, as ICE raids broke out among several majority-Latino neighborhoods such as Paramount. Although the subsequent protests were reportedly mostly peaceful, Trump deemed them sufficiently disruptive to warrant sending in 2,000 National Guard troops on Saturday. It was a historic escalation, the first time a president has activated the National Guard without request from a state’s governor since 1965—and it provoked an incendiary reaction. On Sunday, amid rising tensions, protesters ultimately set at least five Waymo vehicles ablaze. Though their reasons for doing so remain unconfirmed, plenty of evidence suggests what might have fueled their actions. Waymo, one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies for 2025, first began as a Google self-driving car project in 2009, before launching commercially in Phoenix in 2020. The company then spread out to San Francisco in 2022, before hitting Los Angeles last November. As of last December, the service had driven over 50 million rider-only miles, according to the company’s website. Around 100 of Waymo’s 1,500 total robotaxis currently operate in Los Angeles during normal conditions, covering roughly 79 square miles from Santa Monica to downtown L.A. After those five cars were destroyed on Sunday, though, the company removed vehicles from downtown L.A. and shut down service in that area for the time being. (“We are in touch with law enforcement,” a representative from the company confirmed to Fast Company.) Before the end of the day, both X and Bluesky ensured that images and videos of the fiery vehicles had circulated widely, leaving a trail of jokes and finger-wagging in their wake. Setting vehicles on fire ha…
Meanwhile in #DTLA...
Waymo is CLOSED this weekend
#Waymo #WaymoOne #SelfDriving #AutonomousVehicles #Robotaxi #WaymoLA #AV #AutonomousDriving #SelfDrivingCars
