If you’ve been following news coverage of recent anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles, you may have heard about protestors burning Waymo vehicles. But unless you frequent the select few cities where they’ve been rolled out so far, you’re likely unfamiliar with the company. Here’s a rundown of what exactly those vehicles are, and why controversy surrounds them.
What Is a Waymo?
Waymo is the rebrand of Google’s self-driving car project. The company bills its cars and its self-driving software as “The World’s Most Experienced Driver.” According to their website, they stand head and shoulders above other “self-driving” companies because these other companies only offer “driver assist technology which still requires a human driver behind the wheel,” as its competitors still require a human being behind the wheel “paying full attention and ready to take over whenever the car encounters a situation it can’t handle.”
Waymo, on the other hand, equips its vehicles with autonomous technology that is always in control from pickup to destination. The company brags that their “passengers don’t even need to know how to drive. They can sit in the back seat, relax, and enjoy the ride with the Waymo Driver getting them to their destination safely.”
Waymo is being rolled out across the country as a rideshare option. As they become more widespread, the company wants to compete with the likes of Uber and Lyft.
Why Is Waymo Controversial?
When you order a Waymo, a driverless vehicle greets you. You aren’t supposed to touch the steering wheel at all. Instead, you just sit back and let the software piloting the car do all the work that a chauffeur, taxi driver, or Uber or Lyft driver would ordinarily do. Unsurprisingly, many people dislike this new technology, and there are several key concerns surrounding it.
Safety concerns
One of the primary concerns surrounding self-driving cars is safety. There have been many reports of Waymo crashes already. In fact, according to CNN, Waymo had to recall nearly 700 of its vehicles just last year to upgrade its software so that they wouldn’t crash into telephone poles. The accident that sparked this particular recall happened despite the vehicle’s plethora of cameras and sensors.
Privacy concerns
Another safety concern is the cameras and sensors the car is equipped with. NBC reports that there has been backlash surrounding “Waymo’s collection of street data through its cameras and sensors.” In response to calls from California lawmakers asking for more data from the company—ostensibly to evaluate its safety—the company said “it reports more on-road data than most other vehicles operating today.”
Pushing out taxis and Ubers
There are also widespread concerns that Waymo will do to Uber and Lyft what those companies did to the taxi industry: push them out. In a deep dive into the effects of rideshare companies on the taxi industry, the LAist cited Yellow Cab’s 2016 bankruptcy in San Francisco, saying, “Yellow Cab had around 500 medallions, which the city sold for $250,000 apiece. The company ended up selling for around $810,000, a little more than the sticker price for just three medallions.”
If this trend repeats itself with driverless vehicles, many fear a wave of job losses and the impact that would have. Taking human drivers out of the equation entirely means eliminating jobs, jobs that are already precariously underpaid in many cases.
Sources
- NBC: Why Waymo cars became sitting ducks during the L.A. protests (2025)
- Waymo: Self Driving Car Technology
- CNN: Waymo recalls driverless cars to make them less likely to drive into poles (2024)
- Congressman Kevin Mullin: Bay Area Lawmakers Want Cruise and Waymo To Turn Over Safety Data (2023)
- LAist: The human cost of Uber and Lyft: Life in the dying taxi industry (2018)
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