According to reports from February 15th by Fast Technology, incidents of arson and hit-and-runs involving Cruise driverless taxis under General Motors and Waymo driverless taxis under Google have been occurring one after another.
As a result, lawmakers and unions in California are currently urging legislation to ban driverless taxis.
It's reported that around 9 p.m. on February 10th, a Waymo Robotaxi was passing through the local Chinatown when a crowd celebrating an event blocked the road. As a result, the Robotaxi chose to stop and wait for the crowd to disperse.
Surprisingly, at that moment, someone suddenly jumped onto the hood of the Robotaxi and smashed the windshield, with more people joining in afterward.
This incident had a severely negative impact on the local traffic, not only causing a fire but also being the most destructive attack on a Robotaxi in history.
With an increasing number of accidents involving autonomous taxis, people are beginning to doubt the future of self-driving taxis.
In October 2023, the California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended Cruise's license to operate autonomous vehicles in California, accusing the company of withholding key video footage of a pedestrian accident in San Francisco.
Subsequently, Cruise voluntarily suspended the entire fleet's autonomous operations.
Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, stated that the company believes in autonomous driving technology and plans to deploy it in collaboration with Honda in Tokyo in 2026.
