Waymo Robotaxi Reportedly Caught Fire After Driving Over Firework in San Francisco

July 4, 2026

An unoccupied Waymo robotaxi reportedly drove over a small firework near the 1200 block of Connecticut Street in San Francisco on July 4, 2026, and caught fire. No passengers were aboard and no injuries were reported. Waymo said it coordinated with the San Francisco Fire Department and local authorities to remove the damaged vehicle. The incident highlights concerns about the safety of autonomous vehicles operating in urban environments. Through contributors—JOIN US—to learn more.

Alleged deployer: waymo, automated-driving-system-deployers, robotaxi-operators
Alleged developer: waymo, automated-driving-system-developers
Alleged harmed parties: waymo, robotaxi-operators, automated-driving-system-deployers

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Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/1583

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

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