A Fourth of July robotaxi ride in San Francisco turned terrifying after a Waymo vehicle appeared to drive directly through an exploding firework while its passengers watched in horror.

As a person standing on a sidewalk appears to ignite a firework in the middle of an intersection, a passenger inside the self-driving car films through the window.

The firework begins detonating just as the Waymo continues moving forward instead of stopping. “Oh no, no, no,” one passenger can be heard saying as the autonomous vehicle enters the blast.

Colorful smoke is visible coming from what appears to be beneath the robotaxi, prompting another passenger to ask, “Are we on fire, dude?”

The passengers were not injured.

The fireworks scare unfolded during a night of severe congestion across Northern San Francisco, where unusually heavy traffic created widespread problems for Waymo’s fully electric fleet.

“Our priority is keeping San Francisco moving safely, especially during major city celebrations. On July 4th, extreme traffic congestion in Northern San Francisco disrupted normal operations for several Waymo vehicles.

“In coordination with local authorities and emergency services, our roadside assistance team worked quickly to clear our vehicles from the area.

“Our team is always evaluating ways to strengthen Waymo’s resilience in major traffic disruptions,” a Waymo spokesperson said in a statement to KRON4.

Waymo is owned by Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company. The autonomous driving program began in 2009 as the Google Self-Driving Car Project, internally known as Project Chauffeur, before becoming a standalone Alphabet subsidiary in December 2016.

The company currently leads the autonomous ride-hailing market with 577 registered driverless vehicles and roughly 500,000 paid rides each week across 10 cities. Its system relies on an advanced LiDAR sensor suite.

Tesla, by comparison, is expanding localized public trials in Texas with 42 registered driverless vehicles using a camera-only vision system while developing its purpose-built Cybercab.

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