A Waymo self-driving vehicle with no passengers was viciously attacked and set ablaze by an angry mob in San Francisco’s Chinatown neighborhood on Saturday night. The incident comes amid rising tensions over autonomous vehicles in the city.

Witnesses say the Waymo car was suddenly surrounded by dozens of individuals while stopped in traffic around 9:00 pm. Members of the crowd began smashing the windshield and throwing lit firecrackers inside the vehicle, sparking a fire that engulfed the car. The San Francisco Police Department said Sunday no injuries were reported and the cause remains under investigation.

Bystanders Michael Vandi and Franky Francisco witnessed the shocking attack first-hand. They described a scene of chaos, with groups of people cheering on the vandalism, even as others looked on in disbelief. “It went wild…with people with skateboards breaking the glass, and others graffitiing the car,” said Vandi. “No one made a move to stop them.”

The incident follows a recent collision where a Waymo vehicle struck a bicyclist last week. Last year, an autonomous Cruise car injured a pedestrian, leading California to halt the company’s driverless taxi service over safety issues.

While autonomous vehicles continue to expand in San Francisco, Francisco notes negative attitudes persist among some towards the technology. However, he stresses, “There is also the opposite type of energy that exists, it’s just not as loud and usually those folks are not destroying things.”

As the investigation continues, shockwaves from this brazen attack against an unoccupied Waymo are sure to be felt across the industry. It lays bare simmering tensions in the city towards autonomous vehicles – underscoring regulatory and community challenges that must be overcome on the long road ahead to acceptance.