At least 5 Waymo self-driving I-Pace electric cars were set on fire amid protests that turned violent in Los Angeles this weekend.
It could represent as much as 5% of Waymo’s fleet in Los Angeles being destroyed.
The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) launched several raids in the Los Angeles area last week that triggered large-scale protests across the city over the weekend.
The protests were mostly peaceful and aimed to bring attention to federal agents indiscriminately arresting and detaining people, but in some cases, they were violent clashes with the police.
Things took a turn for the worse with President Trump calling the National Guard.
There have been several instances of rioting, looting, and general property damage.
In a unique case, it appears that one or more rioters purposely called multiple Waymo vehicles to Arcadia and Alameda streets, where they slashed the vehicles’ tires, broke the windows, and wrote anti-ICE messages on them.
At around 5 PM on Sunday, the Waymo vehicles were set on fire:
With the ongoing protests, the fire department couldn’t get access to the vehicles and they eventually completely burned down:
Waymo is believed to be operating a fleet of about 100 self-driving cars in the Los Angeles area. Therefore, a significant percentage of the fleet was burned down today.
The company completes over 120,000 rides per week in California, but it operates a bigger fleet in the Bay Area and covers a big service area than in LA.
Waymo shouldn’t have too many issues replenishing its fleet, considering it recently acquired over 2,000 Jaguar I-Pace electric vehicles to more than double its entire fleet over the next year.
The company currently operates over 1,500 vehicles across San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Austin.
With a high utilization rate, the relatively small fleet has already taken significant market shares of those ride-hailing markets. It is estimated that Waymo accounts for approximately 20% of the ride-hailing market in San Francisco.
The new vehicles are going to enable Waymo to expand into new markets.
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