This article was updated on 2/11/2026.
Look online and there is no shortage of supposed self-driving cars breaking down and stopping traffic. However, there are little to no videos or pictures of autonomous vehicles breaking down in the city of Philadelphia… until now!
We thought we had captured the first footage of a broken down Waymo in Philadelphia on Monday February 9th, 2026 at 6:30pm on 23rd and Washington Ave.
However, a Matt Dunphy reached out via Reddit to correct the record! He witnessed a Waymo stuck outside of his home on January 30, 2026.
Since this discovery, we are interested in documenting broken Waymos throughout Philly before the service has even launched.
Waymo In Philly
Waymo began mapping and driving their vehicles throughout Philadelphia in early 2025 and began testing their autonomous features in December of 2025. Philadelphia’s robot hating reputation precedes it, forcing articles with titles such as “Philadelphia Residents Are Threatening Violence Against Waymo Vehicles After Company Moves In City” published by esteemed outlets like BroBible.
Philadelphia has been slower than most American cities to adopt “Silicon Valley” style technologies in our streets. The “Lime Scooter” craze skipped Philadelphia, likely because the residents of this city are not early adopters, if anything we’re a skeptical city. According to the International City Management Association the “early adopter cities” are Ann Arbor, Austin, Boston, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, Oslo, and Portland, Oregon. Those are the cities that first tried Tesla cars, Lime Scooters, Uber, and a number of other tech products that never hit the streets of Philadelphia
Videos have surfaced in Phoenix, San Francisco, and LA of Waymo’s stopping traffic, Waymo’s have been weirdly stopping behind school buses in Atlanta, the people of Austin are complaining about them, and in Miami a Waymo drove through an active police arrest. Listed in the last sentence are all six American cities that Waymo currently operates in.
The broken down Philly Waymo only blocked one lane, which makes it only a minor traffic hazard by United States Traffic Network standards. Behind the Waymo was a car filled with two young men who seemingly work for Waymo and were following the vehicle. They refused to comment on the broken Waymo.
Waymo has put months into mapping out Philadelphia, so their services “going live” seem like an inevitability. Just two days ago, Waymo announced publicly that their “autonomous” vehicles are sometimes operated by remote drivers in the Philippines – meaning that riding in a Waymo isn’t just hurting Uber, Lyft, and taxi drivers by giving their jobs to robots, but it’s also shipping jobs overseas.
The first dominos have fallen in the “self-driving” experience for Philadelphians. The headache was brief and subdued to deep Point Breeze, but these headaches are coming to a street near you!
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