Waymo is routing cars away from S.F. ICE protests. How did the robotaxis become a protest symbol?
Lighting cars on fire has long been a tactic to escalate protests and capture the public's attention. But demonstrators opposing the immigration raids in Los Angeles have a new target: Waymo robotaxis.
At least five Waymos had been torched in Los Angeles as of Monday, each creating a dramatic, made-for-social media tableau. Photos that circulated online showed the jaunty electric Jaguars engulfed in flames and spattered with graffiti as demonstrators leapt atop their hoods.
In one particularly dramatic image, a masked protestor stands on a Waymo and raises a skateboard over his shoulder, as though preparing to smash it through the vehicle's windshield.
The vandalism reached a point that prompted Waymo to divert service from downtown Los Angeles and other areas where protests were anticipated, including parts of San Francisco, a company spokesperson told the Chronicle.
'People are looking to attack symbols of power,' said Omar Wasow, an assistant professor of political science at UC Berkeley.
Following a police officer's murder of George Floyd in 2020, people set fire to police cars in Seattle, Minneapolis and Philadelphia. Now, in an era when Big Tech is shaping society — and many Silicon Valley executives are aligning with President Donald Trump — resistance movements have a new target to direct their rage.
While Waymo cars are far removed from the immigration debate, they can serve as a kind of proxy for the world's most influential corporations: Waymo's parent company, Alphabet, owns Google. Anti-tech sentiment can easily translate into 'anti-Waymo sentiment,' Wasow said.
However, the messaging might not be that deep. Since they roam downtown streets without drivers and obediently stop whenever an object blocks their path, Waymos are fairly easy to set ablaze, Wasow noted. And the lithium batteries in the vehicles make them burn hotter and longer for maximum spectacle.
If the cars represent Silicon Valley's infiltration of public roads, they can also be hapless victims. Vandals who set fire to a Waymo driverless car in San Francisco's Chinatown neighborhood last year had no clear social crusade. Police later arrested a teenager for the crime.
'There's a lot of wanton destruction that's completely disconnected from any symbolism,' said Cameron Gieda, a mobility executive who specializes in autonomous vehicles.
Gieda, who lives in Los Angeles, heard the staccato chop of helicopters flying over his roof Monday. He said he's witnessed a lot of civil unrest in which protestors destroy cars — possibly, he reasoned, to create an obstruction for traffic or law enforcement.
Whether such acts are effective for making a statement has long been a point of contention among activists and academics.
Violence and property damage grabs headlines and accelerates media coverage, Wasow said. Yet it also skews that coverage.
'It tends to have the protest framed not around the core question of 'Is mass deportation a just policy? ''' Wasow said. Rather, he concluded, the conflict between protestors and police, or the incineration of autonomous vehicles, becomes the story.
But perhaps not in San Francisco, at least on Monday.
'We're temporarily adjusting our service,' the Waymo app stated, in response to a request for a car downtown, 'which may limit availability in some areas and increase wait times and routing. Thank you for your patience.'
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