News
Waymo driverless robotaxi attacked and set on fire in San Francisco
A Waymo self-driving Jaguar I-PACE robotaxi was set ablaze and vandalized by a crowd in San Francisco on Saturday evening. The shocking incident, which drew criticism from social media users, happened in the city’s Chinatown area.
Michael Vandi, a software engineer who happened to be in the area when the incident happened, described the sequence of events that transpired which led to the crowd attacking the Jaguar I-PACE and setting it on fire. As per The Autopian, there was a small traffic holdup with a Waymo in front of it. This reportedly resulted in a person jumping into the hood of the car and breaking the vehicle’s windshield.
happening NOW in SF. Waymo car vandalized & lit on fire ?@sfchronicle pic.twitter.com/OEZYFiy6mv— Michael Vandi (@michael_vandi) February 11, 2024
What followed was chaos. Another person reportedly jumped on the hood of the self-driving vehicle, which prompted cheers from other people. Others soon broke the self-driving I-PACE’s glass and vandalized the vehicle. Things escalated further when fireworks were lit under and inside the car. The vehicle proceeded to burn as a result.
BREAKING: An autonomous Waymo vehicle is intentionally set on fire in Chinatown, according to SF Fire. Firefighters said they got reports around 10 people were involved.
Waymo said “a crowd surrounded and vandalized the vehicle, breaking the window and throwing a firework … pic.twitter.com/6QN2jTppRu— Gia Vang (@Gia_Vang) February 11, 2024
Franky Francisco with FriscoLive415, which has shared footage of the shocking event, described his observations during the event’s aftermath. As per Francisco, the Jaguar I-PACE’s battery seemed to have reignited multiple times as the vehicle burned.
@Waymo on fire in sf chinatown ? pic.twitter.com/7dlQnBMQyT— nathan (@_nathanmarquez_) February 11, 2024
“When I arrived on the scene, SFFD was already on scene hosing down the car with water and their chemical extinguishers. The battery appeared to be reigniting multiple times and was smoking like crazy. The live footage I did on X gives a decent idea of how I came onto the scene, which was after the attack on the vehicle. The vehicle looked completely ‘decapitated’ and I have never seen a vehicle that damaged up close,” he said.
Waymo Vehicle surrounded and then graffiti’d, windows were broken, and firework lit on fire inside the vehicle which ultimately caught the entire vehicle on fire. #SFFD
Photos by Séraphine Hossenlopp pic.twitter.com/aOTqL3Rk8V— SAN FRANCISCO FIRE DEPARTMENT MEDIA (@SFFDPIO) February 11, 2024
Waymo has issued a short statement about the incident: “At approximately 9 PM on Saturday, February 10th, a fully autonomous Waymo vehicle was navigating on Jackson Street in San Francisco when a crowd surrounded and vandalized the vehicle, breaking the window and throwing a firework inside, which set the vehicle on fire. The vehicle was not transporting any riders and no injuries have been reported. We are working closely with local safety officials to respond to the situation,” Waymo noted.
Watch FriscoLive415’s footage of the incident in the video below.
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Elon Musk
SpaceX’s Starship just got filmed by its own cargo
SpaceX released new footage of Starship in space captured by the Starlink satellites it deployed.
SpaceX released a new video Friday evening showing Starship from an angle showcased by its own Starlink satellites, watching the rocket drift away in orbit.
The 65 second clip, posted on X, stitches together footage from four cameras mounted on a single Starlink V3 satellite. It opens with a close view of Starship’s 171 foot upper stage, still catching sunlight, then pulls back as the two spacecraft separate.
The footage comes from Starship’s 13th flight test, which launched July 24 from Starbase after a scrubbed attempt and an abort caused by an engine issue the week before. When Flight 13 finally flew, it carried the first batch of functional Starlink V3 satellites Starship has ever deployed, twenty of them, with six equipped with cameras meant to scan the ship’s heat shield during reentry.
View of Starship in space from a Starlink V3 satellite on Flight 13.
This composite is made of imagery from four separate cameras on a single satellite. Six of the satellites were equipped with cameras to scan Starship’s heat shield and transmit imagery down to operators to… pic.twitter.com/sNTHHz5vLr
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 31, 2026
Flight 13 checked most of its boxes. Starship deployed all 20 satellites, relit a Raptor engine in space, and splashed down softly in the Indian Ocean off Western Australia. Musk’s longer term plan calls for a Starlink V3 constellation of 100,000 satellites, according to a recent FCC filing, with Starship as the only vehicle capable of launching them at the volume that requires. Each Starship flight is designed to carry up to 60 V3 satellites once the vehicle reaches routine service, well beyond what Falcon 9 can carry in a single mission.
Starship is next expected to fly with an attempt at catching the ship itself with the launch tower’s mechanical arms, a maneuver SpaceX has so far reserved for the Super Heavy booster.
Tesla flexed the new features of the Model Y L with a dedicated media event at the company’s Diner on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles.
The Model Y L is the extended-wheelbase version of the all-electric crossover, which has been voted the best-selling car in the world on three occasions. The vehicle is already rolling off production lines at Gigafactory Texas, and first deliveries are slated to take place later this year.
Tesla brings Model Y L ‘Launch Series’ to the U.S. at $61,990
Teslarati was invited to the event, but due to some scheduling conflicts, we could not make it to Los Angeles. Instead, we will have our hands on a media unit sometime in August, so we’ll be able to spend some more extended time with the Model Y L.
However, plenty of those who made it to LA shared some cool features that set the Model Y L apart from the Model Y.
Multi-Row Climate Control
Tesla fitted the Model Y L with full climate control on all three rows on the front screen. It can be adjusted by selecting which row you’d like to modify on the right-hand side of the touch screen:
The Model Y L has a little row of icons on the right side of the climate screen so the front passenger can more quickly jump to whatever row they want to control. pic.twitter.com/uJS44mgCvk
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) July 30, 2026
Better Rear Window Visibility
One of the strangest things about the Model Y, especially the Juniper iteration, is the rear window has extremely limited visibility when looking into the rearview mirror.
Tesla has improved upon this with the Model Y L:
This is a drastic difference. https://t.co/wTdhitD5aA pic.twitter.com/z6hFs0Jkss
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 30, 2026
PowerShare will be included
Model Y L will come with PowerShare in North America, with an 11.5kW output to your home. Tesla said it would require Powerwall 3 for operation.
Wireless Charging Pad
There has been some speculation that Tesla would upgrade the wireless charging pads in the United States, but this is not the case.
Tesla owner fixes common feature complaint with crafty DIY retrofit
Tesla confirmed that it does not come with the cooled pads as the Y L in China does. This is because North America has not adopted Qi charging yet.
Thermal Management Improvements
These improvements in the Model Y L were seen with thermal management:
- Up to 15% faster cabin cooling
- +23% thermal efficiency gained in hot weather, 7 miles of real-world range gained
- 8x more solar energy reflection off of glass roof
- 30% reduction in solar energy entering the cabin
Some of the thermal management improvements in the new Model Y L Premium:
• Up to 15% faster cabin cooling
• Up to 15 min faster cabin cooling in sunny conditions
• +23% thermal efficiency gained in hot weather +7 miles of real-world range gained
• +10 miles recovered after… pic.twitter.com/jZirFWFdtO— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) July 31, 2026
Demand
Tesla said the Model Y L is almost sold out in the U.S. It comes with
- 1 year of FSD Supervised
- 1 year of Supercharging
- 1 year of Premium Connectivity
- Free exterior paint color, interior, and wheel option at no additional cost
Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to his social media platform X on Thursday night to deny a ridiculous rumor regarding the sale of the company’s Chinese vehicle production plant, Gigafactory Shanghai.
On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the matter, claimed in a scathing new report that Tesla was exploring a potential sale of the entire China business in an effort to help bolster a potential merger between SpaceX and Tesla.
Musk immediately denied the rumor not once but twice, initially calling it “fake news,” and then calling it “absurdly fake news” in a separate post just a few moments later:
This is fake news
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 31, 2026
The original poster of the Wall Street Journal article that Musk saw deleted the initial post sharing the headline and the rumored sale of Tesla’s China business.
This has never even come up in a discussion ever.
Absurdly fake news.
People should assume news is fake until proven otherwise.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 31, 2026
The report seemed absolutely and unequivocally false to begin with; Tesla’s business in China is among the most important pieces of the company’s business. Not only does the factory supply vehicles for the domestic market, but also for various other markets in Asia and Europe.
China is also one of the largest automotive markets in the world, and Tesla has performed well there despite the robust competition.
The speculation regarding a Tesla and SpaceX merger has started to gain steam this year as the space exploration company went public just a month ago. There has been speculation that Musk will bridge all of his companies under one “umbrella company,” and analysts believe this could happen before the end of the decade.
The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building
This is the latest iteration of Musk’s very evident war on mainstream media. Reports regarding any of Musk’s companies are quick to get the dreaded “false” or “fake news” response from the CEO when they are unfounded.
SpaceX’s Starship just got filmed by its own cargo
Tesla Model Y L’s new features flexed at unveiling event at Diner
