Feb 11 (Reuters) – A crowd in San Francisco destroyed a Waymo self-driving car on Saturday, threw fireworks inside and set it on fire, Alphabet Inc.'s Waymo said.
This is not the first time people have attacked self-driving cars, but the severity of the incident comes as public hostility towards self-driving cars has increased following last year's accident in which a General Motors self-driving car dragged a pedestrian. It may indicate that there is. cruise unit.
According to Waymo, at around 9pm on Saturday (5am on Sunday), someone in the crowd smashed a car window and threw a firework into the car, causing it to burst into flames. Waymo did not say what caused the crowd to attack the car.
Video footage on social media showed the electric car catching fire and a huge plume of black smoke billowing out.
“The vehicle was not carrying any passengers and no injuries were reported. We are working closely with local safety authorities to respond to the situation,” the company said.
The San Francisco Fire Department said it had turned the incident over to police and was investigating the cause of the attack.
The fire department posted a photo of the burnt car on social media and announced that fireworks inside the car caused the fire. San Francisco police could not be reached for comment.
Last week, a driverless Waymo vehicle collided with a bicycle in San Francisco, resulting in minor injuries, and the state's motor vehicle regulator is investigating the incident.
On October 2, a pedestrian was struck by another vehicle, thrown into the path of a self-driving cruise car, and dragged 20 feet (6 meters).
California suspended the company's driverless test license, and Cruise withdrew all self-driving cars from testing in the United States. (Reporting by Hyun-joo Jin, Abirup Roy and Mariana Sandoval in San Francisco; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
