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New restrictions on Waymo movement are put in place in San Francisco as well

Key Points

A visible emblem of ire has emerged from the protests in Los Angeles: graffitied, burning Waymos.

Electric, driverless vehicles were set on fire this weekend. Vandalism and torched cars are a hallmark of many riots, but EV fires burn hotter than traditional car fires and are potentially more hazardous.

The autonomous robot taxis owned by Google parent company Alphabet were tagged with protest slogans and profanity—and set on fire—as a way to disrupt traffic over the weekend and demonstrate against the widespread roundup of migrants by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. Waymo said Monday that it has restricted travel for the autonomous vehicles so they won’t be able to travel to downtown Los Angeles, but the fleet continues to serve other parts of the city.

The company on Monday began suspending service to parts of San Francisco where protesters are expected to gather. A spokesperson said the company is communicating with local law enforcement.

A check of the Waymo app showed restrictions on pickup and drop-off in downtown San Francisco as well as parts of the South of Market area and Mission districts. It showed much longer wait times and higher prices than usual for rides in other parts of town.

In Los Angeles, there were restrictions outside the area of the protests. No rides were available Monday morning from West Los Angeles to the Crypto.com Arena or the University of Southern California, two areas located several miles from the scene.

The Waymo spokesperson said that the company has no reason to believe the vehicles destroyed in Los Angeles were called by people at the scene and that it is investigating the situation.

Even before the protests escalated over the weekend, Waymo vehicles had been targeted by vandals. In Santa Monica, Calif., orange traffic cones were placed outside a depot where the vehicles are cleaned and recharged, preventing them from entering the area, according to local media reports. Waymos have angered some residents who live near charging stations because the cars can make a noise while backing up, much like delivery vans do, and in some cases, Waymos parked in lots have started to honk at each other.

Waymo EVs can be called up on a mobile-phone app to areas a human driver might not be willing to go. The cars can be spray-painted, set on fire or pummeled until glass breaks without the possibility of hurting a human driver. But EVs that are set on fire burn hotter and longer than traditional cars because they run on lithium-ion batteries.

EV batteries contain flammable chemicals and can release their own oxygen as they burn, allowing EV fires to reignite hours or even days after they appear to be extinguished. That makes them a bigger threat to their surrounding area than traditional car fires, and EV battery fires can also release toxic fumes that are hazardous to humans.

Firefighters who are called to put out flaming electric vehicles find that the surest approach is to stand back and “let it burn,” Fire Marshal Andy King of Franklin, Tenn., told The Wall Street Journal in 2023.

The Waymo vehicles on the road in Los Angeles are Jaguar I-PACE EVs, with a starting price tag of around $73,000. They are equipped with an array of cameras, radar and lidar—a detection system akin to radar that uses a laser—as well as a sophisticated computer system. The total price tag was estimated in 2024 to be between $150,000 and $200,000.

Waymo wouldn’t comment on how much its vehicles cost or quantify how much damage has been done to its fleet of 300 EVs in Los Angeles.

E-scooters operated by Lime were also vandalized and thrown during protests over the weekend.

“For the safety of all involved, we implore everyone to refrain from using our vehicles for anything other than their intended purpose,” a company spokesperson said.

The Southeast Asian ride-hailing and delivery company will use the funds to boost the “strategic flexibility” of its business, which may include potential acquisitions

Key Points

Grab plans to raise $1.25 billion via convertible bonds to fund buybacks and acquisitions, it said after issuing a fresh denial about a potential merger with Indonesian rival GoTo Gojek Tokopedia.

The Southeast Asian ride-hailing and delivery company said it will use proceeds from the offering of convertible notes, due in 2030, to boost the “strategic flexibility” of it business, which may include potential acquisitions. It emphasized that it will continue to maintain a high bar for any deals.

Singapore-based Grab, which also provides financial services on its super app, will also use the funds to buy back shares under its previously announced $500 million buyback program. It has repurchased $226 million worth of shares to date.

The plans come shortly after the Nasdaq-listed company said in a stock exchange filing that it is not engaged in merger talks with Gojek. Grab has repeatedly denied media reports saying that it is in discussions with the Indonesian ride-hailing and delivery firm to combine their businesses in a multibillion merger.

The filing suggests that the companies either failed to reach an agreement or have decided not to pursue or continue discussions for now, Citi Research analysts said.

Grab has reiterated that organic growth remains a priority, Citi said in a note, suggesting that it will be prudent in capital allocation and will only consider inorganic opportunities like M&A when it makes sense to shareholders and aligns with business prospects.

The company’s business momentum remains strong and Citi expects it to deliver solid organic business growth and better margins ahead.

In a separate release, Grab said its business in Indonesia has continued to benefit from solid demand and ride volumes in April and May, which it attributed to its focus on affordability and expansion in the country.

Domestic buyers take advantage of tumbling prices as new non-dom tax regime cools interest from abroad

UK families are “seizing the moment” to snap up bargain luxury homes in exclusive London postcodes as a dwindling pool of international buyers, deterred by new non-dom tax rules, leads to double-digit price drops.

Estate agents say families living in prime areas of outer London, such as Barnes or Chiswick, who may not have previously been able to afford to step up into prime inner areas of the capital, are securing a foothold in the most exclusive neighbourhoods, such as Belgravia and Kensington.

“We have seen a lot more domestic market buying in prime central London because some sellers have adjusted prices to the point where they are affordable,” said Matt Thompson, head of sales at Chestertons.

“There’s definitely people eyeing family houses in Belgravia that they can now buy at less than £2,000 per square feet, which was not possible a few years ago,” added Stuart Bailey, head of prime central London sales at Knight Frank. 

“Where a property has been listed for six to 12 months, double-digit reductions mean they are selling. Switched-on domestic buyers are seizing the moment while there’s less competition.”

Driving the change is a sharp cooling of interest in London by wealthy international buyers put off from setting up home in the capital by Labour’s new non-dom tax regime and stamp duty changes.

Mark Redfern, senior sales director at UK Sotheby’s International Realty, said prime central London was “definitely a challenging market” with price falls driven by recent tax changes affecting non-doms.

The withdrawal of these buyers, traditionally dominant in the prime market for £5mn-plus homes, has reduced competition in areas such as Kensington, Belgravia and Knightsbridge.

House prices in Kensington and Chelsea have fallen to their lowest level since 2013, according to Financial Times analysis of data from the Office for National Statistics published last month.

Data from Knight Frank, published on Monday, showed that the number of sales of prime residential London property in the six months to May fell 7 per cent versus the previous year. 

The number of new prospective buyers registering for prime homes fell by 13 per cent over the same period, Knight Frank data also showed.

“Serious sellers, looking to sell in the next year, are cutting their asking prices to attract buyers,” Bailey said.

Chestertons’ Thompson reported price reductions of 5 per cent on some prime homes since January, translating to hundreds of thousands of pounds on a £5mn-plus property.

“People are thinking they couldn’t buy in that area, and they are definitely thinking again,” he added.

Data compiled for the FT by TwentyCi, a property analytics company, illustrated the sharp cooling of the prime market.

In the year to the end of May, 706 price reductions were reported on prime central London homes, against 1,333 new instructions, according to its data. This compared with 610 price cuts on 1,484 new instructions, the same time a year ago.

Prime homes were taking 50 per cent longer to sell, with the time to reach a deal in the second quarter averaging 216 days, compared with 144 days over the same period in 2024.

Under the old rules, non-doms could live in the UK without paying tax on overseas income and gains. Since April, this has been limited to four years and means their worldwide assets are subject to UK inheritance tax.

With elite international buyers considering other locations, such as Milan or Paris, opportunities have opened for UK families to buy into more exclusive London postcodes.

“For domestic buyers, if they want to buy in the most aspirational locations, they have less competition and more properties available,” said Lucian Cook, director of residential research with Savills, the estate agent.

“The balance of demand is changing and this is probably the biggest change in the prime market.”