The Torched Waymos: Burning Effigies of Tech Oligarchy

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Images of burning Waymos — robo-taxis developed and owned by an Alphabet (Google) subsidiary — have captured the imagination of observers across the world. Amidst world-historic anti-deportation protests and an authoritarian federal government crackdown (one that has prompted the Gov. Gavin Newsom of California to sue the President of the United States), protesters are alleged to have lit five Waymo-branded Jaguar I-Pace robotaxis near Downtown Los Angeles. The powerful spectacles, fueled by the chemical energy in each car’s lithium-ion battery (amounting, according to Scientific American to 170 pounds of TNT), eviscerated each vehicle and eventually left nothing but charred car frames and toxic air.

While the recent protests have been largely peaceful, photographs of the burning, graffitied robotaxis have sparked fiery political debate, in moments even eclipsing the larger concerns of family separation, public kidnappings, and state violence that are at the root of the public’s rage.

Some aspects of this debate — focused on property destruction as a legitimate or illegitimate tactic of protest — are familiar.  After the police murder of George Floyd and during the ensuing Black Lives Matters uprisings of 2020, right-wing analysts and politicians claimed that the accompanying property destruction was evidence of the “institutional decay” and “poisonous ideology” infecting everyday Americans.  

On the political left, the debates were more nuanced. Some focused on the peaceful and righteous protesters, reasoning that the violence emerged from fringe elements of the movement who disregarded the rules and principles set out by movement actors. Others argued that the damage to property — and particularly to luxury stores — should be taken seriously on its own terms. As R.H. Lossin explained in the Nation, “Nothing symbolizes the exclusion, deprivation, and gross class inequality that characterizes our current economic system more perfectly than the luxury stores in New York City’s SoHo district…[that were vandalized].” From this perspective, the singular focus on the property destruction over the lives of Black people undergirded the anger that fueled the protests themselves.

Like the vandalized Gucci and Chanel storefronts were in 2020, Waymos have become symbols of the recent protests against the wide-scale, public deportations of immigrants under the Trump administration. While I do not support property destruction, I think understanding both the spectacle — and the amount of attention it gathered — is key to understanding the political logics and pathologies of this moment. It is worth exploring.  

Like the vandalized Gucci and Chanel storefronts were in 2020, Waymos have become symbols of the recent protests against the wide-scale, public deportations of immigrants under the Trump administration.

The Waymos represent, as one young activist put it, “a lack of humanity” that has pervaded life and governance with the growth of Big Tech and its integration into the political, social, and technical apparatus of the state. Not only are Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai, and Jeff Bezos among the richest people on the globe amidst world historic inequality, but they also have special access and assumed influence over government and political decision-making. And in pure economic terms, the efficiencies of their technological developments have not been shared with the working class. Indeed, their companies are alleged to create dangerous, economically precarious work in the US and beyond. Meanwhile, their products — including Google’s robotaxis — pervade our urban spaces, often in ways and through means that feel fundamentally unfair or even world destroying. 

In San Francisco, where Waymos have been cruising the streets as commercial vehicles since 2023, these robotaxis — and their governance — have been controversial.  

Although the primary argument for adoption of these vehicles has been pedestrian safety, public safety leaders have been opposed. Last year, before the California Public Utilities Commission allowed expansion of robotaxis for commercial purposes, the San Francisco fire chief and numerous police officers opposed the move in public hearings, concluding that they were not ready for “prime time.” In addition to the injuries that self-driving vehicles had caused (like hitting and dragging a pedestrian and striking a cyclist), the first responders expressed frustration over the frequent logistical problems posed by the cars. As the fire chief said, “It is not our job to babysit their vehicles.”  A police commander raised concerns about the lack of transparency surrounding robotaxi management stating that the companies often do not answer calls from police, even as the vehicles are interfering in safety operations.  

Over the objection of these department leaders and other city officials, and with little to no environmental analysis, these robotaxis were approved for commercial use. As an issue of basic governance, this is a problem—a big one. According to one industry report, a single test autonomous vehicle produces in one day as much data as the Hubble Space telescope produces in a year. The environmental impacts of the energy necessary to store this data and to power the powerful computers are not fully understood, but scientists predict that these autonomous vehicles, if adopted widely, could be a massive driver of global carbon emissions, “generat[ing] as many greenhouse gas emissions as all the data centers in the world today.” This analysis, of course, does not even begin to consider the environmental and social impacts of the lithium mining involved in building the batteries that fueled the spectacular flames in Los Angeles.

Finally, and perhaps most saliently for the anti-deportation protests, the cars represent both labor displacement and wide-scale technological surveillance of urban spaces and communities, recording, as one critic put it, “every waking move…for future law enforcement scrutiny.” Taxi and Uber drivers, the vast majority of whom are immigrants and racial minorities, are rightfully worried that they will soon lose their jobs. While Uber has made diverting funds from public transportation systems a part of their business plan, self-driving taxis represent something else entirely — a direct foil to a more utopian vision of mobility: a clean, efficient, safe, and accessible public transportation system.  

Despite these significant concerns—raised by numerous and sometimes opposing urban interests—somehow, these vehicles found their way onto our roads and into our cities.  The prioritizing of technology capital’s interests over the concerns and lives of everyday people — first responders, transportation workers, the people who rely on access to public transportation — is particularly egregious. In a microcosm, it is how people feel about neoliberal governance more broadly — the sense that their lives are treated as secondary to elite interests. 

The prioritizing of technology capital’s interests over the concerns and lives of everyday people — first responders, transportation workers, the people who rely on access to public transportation — is particularly egregious.

In response to the torching in Los Angeles, Waymo quickly disabled some of their vehicles in San Francisco, but not before at least one vehicle was sprayed with two messages: “Eat the Rich” and “Tech Fuels Fascism.” Rather than random acts of wanton destruction, we should understand the burning of Waymos as political effigies of tech oligarchy, representations of the public fury that surveillance capitalism’s interests are too often privileged over the everyday common good. 

The opinions expressed in Comment pieces are the author’s own.