Waymo protest Los Angeles forces driverless taxi service halt after immigration unrest turns violent, leaving cars torched and the city tense

Downtown Los Angeles descended into scenes of chaos and fire over the weekend as demonstrators protesting immigration raids clashed with police, and several of Waymo’s autonomous vehicles burned in the fallout. The violence has now forced the tech giant to suspend its operations in the city’s central corridor.

What began as a largely peaceful demonstration on Sunday quickly unravelled after the arrival of National Guard troops, deployed by President Trump to support local authorities amid ongoing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity. Anger in the crowd erupted. Fire, glass, and rage followed.

Five of Waymo’s driverless electric Jaguar vehicles were destroyed, the company confirmed on Monday. While the fleet continues to operate in other parts of Los Angeles, it has now entirely vanished from downtown.

Photographs from the heart of the unrest show masked protesters smashing windshields, kicking doors, and scrawling graffiti across scorched white metal. One image captures a burning Waymo car engulfed in flames as black smoke billows into the skyline—a grim symbol of spiralling civic unrest and the unpredictable dangers of automated transport in politically charged environments.

A spokesperson for Waymo said the company did not believe its vehicles were specifically targeted.
“We do not believe our vehicles were intentionally attacked but were simply caught in the chaos,” they told CBS News.
Other transport tech suffered too—dozens of e-scooters operated by Lime were also torched.

Still, the impact is undeniable. The disruption has yanked the city back into a debate about the safety of uncrewed technology in public spaces and its vulnerability during moments of civil strife. Waymo’s vehicles, which have become an everyday sight since their launch in Los Angeles last November, now represent something else: collateral in a deeper political war.

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell tried to downplay the wider threat.
“Most of the demonstrations remained peaceful,” he stated.
But in downtown, the atmosphere turned combustible.
Witnesses described the scene as chaotic, with fires breaking out, tear gas lingering in the air, and barricades hastily thrown into the streets.

Waymo, originally spun out of Google’s self-driving car initiative, has prided itself on pioneering safe, efficient transport. Since rebranding under Alphabet in 2016, the company has expanded from trials in Phoenix to full service in San Francisco, and now, until this weekend, in Los Angeles. Expansion plans into Miami, Atlanta and Austin remain unaffected, for now.

Yet the events in L.A. cast a shadow. Protesters expressed not just anger over immigration raids but also deep scepticism about automated systems and the corporations behind them.
“These things don’t belong here,” one protester shouted as another Waymo car caught fire.

The broader question now hangs: What happens when highly visible, corporate-controlled technologies intersect with deep political unrest? The answer may lie in the smoke curling above Los Angeles streets.

For Waymo, the next steps involve close collaboration with local law enforcement and reassessing safety protocols.
“We’re working with authorities and evaluating the situation to determine when it’s appropriate to resume downtown operations,” the company said in a statement.

For the residents of L.A., though, the spectacle of firelit driverless cars on a city street isn’t easily forgotten. In a city already grappling with immigration debates, rising unrest, and technological disruption, the weekend’s violent climax was a warning: even the future has nowhere to hide.