A Redditor witnessed extreme vandalism recently and took the footage to the r/SelfDrivingCars/ community to share it.
The clip shows someone stomping on the windshield of a self-driving Waymo vehicle. Waymo has been using the all-electric Jaguar i-Pace since 2018. The company has added another 2,000 to its taxi fleet even though Jaguar ended production in 2024.
Self-driving cars have been subject to a few highly visible accidents, leading to low public faith. That said, the technology can also detect some accidents and take action faster than human reflexes would allow.
Waymo is under the same corporate umbrella as Google and is far from the only player in the autonomous driving space. Tesla, BMW, Honda, and others actively engage in self-driving cars. Others, like GM, have withdrawn from making fully autonomous vehicles.
Autonomy notwithstanding, electric vehicles are an important step in progressing transportation systems. They're cheaper to run and maintain, plus they skip the health risks to passengers in gas-burning vehicles.
Best of all, EVs have no tailpipe pollution. Even when factoring in the footprint of manufacturing an electric vehicle and the grid used to charge it, EVs come out ahead of gas cars. This is crucially important as light-duty vehicle pollution is a major driver of extreme weather events. Droughts, heat waves, and floods are wreaking havoc on housing, agricultural, and ecological systems.
While self-driving cars are still a nascent technology, early adopters have enjoyed riding in them. Reddit commenters were equally on Waymo's side and decried the EV's vandalism.
"'Vandalism' is like, tagging the door or throwing a milkshake on the widescreen," said one community member. "This.... this is someone in the midst of a serious mental health crisis. I just hope there were no passengers on board."
"People have gone full nutter," said another.
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