Waymo, the self-driving ride-hailing service owned by Google, moved into Philadelphia for the first time this month, and Philly residents weren’t exactly as receptive to the idea as the company may have hoped.

Traditionally, Philadelphia has taken an adversarial approach to robots and robot-adjacent technology. In 2015, a Philadelphia man destroyed hitchBOT,  a robot that was hitchhiking across the United States. The robot had traveled from Boston to Philadelphia before being destroyed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERr2gqqM4i8

Now it appears that Philly residents are ready to take the same approach toward Waymo, which many people believe is unsafe following multiple recalls of its product. Not only are they threatening to commit violence against the autonomous vehicles, but they’re also threatening to fill the vehicles with trash and the city enters the second week of an ongoing sanitation strike.

and we’ll do it again!!!!! https://t.co/4AEfW3rONV pic.twitter.com/ULOvvxQU5U

— The Ginger Swindler (superbowl champ) (@lilydsmith) July 7, 2025

You really think I’m not about to load all my trash into one of these lol https://t.co/jXY3Apioej

— ert (@mertcentury) July 7, 2025

Waymo Moves Into Philadelphia At Opportunistic Time Amid Ongoing SEPTA Crisis

Additionally, the move for Waymo comes at a contentious time in the city. Pennsylvania’s legislature has yet to pass a budget for its current fiscal year. As a result, the state did not issue funding for SEPTA, Philadelphia’s public transit authority. As a result of the lack of funding, SEPTA had to enact an emergency budget that significantly limited both the number of bus and rail lines as well as how late the service ran.

Theoretically, Waymo stands to benefit from the lack of public transit options. But Philadelphians are also notoriously skeptical when it comes to these sorts of situations.

Who knows? Maybe Waymo is truly the way of the future and will take off in one of the biggest cities in the United States. But there’s also every opportunity that the move into Philly ends calamitously, and with a large number of damaged vehicles.

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