RobotRisk Autonomous Systems Incident & Risk Register
RobotRisk / Waymo (Alphabet) / 2025-10-27

Waymo robotaxi strikes and kills a cat named KitKat in San Francisco

S1 · 10/27
2025 · Waymo (Alphabet) · San Francisco, CA, USA

Record

CompanyWaymo (Alphabet)
Categoryother
Typemalfunction
Date10/27
2025
Time of daynot documented
LocationSan Francisco, CA, USA
SeverityS1 (near-miss / disclosed vulnerability)
Scale-
Confidencemedium
VerificationYes - adversarially checked against the cited source
SourceGolem.de

What happened

A Waymo autonomous robotaxi struck and killed a well-known bodega cat named KitKat in San Francisco's Mission District while pulling away from a stop, prompting public outrage and a city supervisor's call for AV regulation reform.

Waymo (Alphabet) record context

Entries by year and severity

012023 S3: 11232024 S1: 11242025 S1: 11252026 S3: 1126
S1S2S3S4S5

By incident type

By severity

Waymo (Alphabet) vs other alternatives

other context

other: entries by year

14282017 S1: 12017 S5: 12172019 S3: 11192021 S3: 11212022 S5: 11222023 S3: 12023 S4: 23232024 S1: 22024 S2: 42024 S3: 32024 S4: 72024 S5: 521242025 S1: 12025 S2: 72025 S3: 62025 S4: 82025 S5: 628252026 S1: 12026 S2: 92026 S3: 32026 S4: 22026 S5: 31826
S1S2S3S4S5

other: failure modes

other: most entries

malfunction context

malfunction: by category

malfunction: by year

malfunction: severity profile

Comparable malfunction events in other

SevDateCompanyEvent
S32026-07Indian NavyIndian Navy Drishti-10 surveillance drone crashes near Porbandar
S22026-06Royal NavyRoyal Navy autonomous drone boat malfunctions, collides with yacht in Portsmouth Harbour
S22026-06Qualcomm-powered humanoid robot (unspecified integrator)Humanoid robot running Qualcomm hardware collapses on stage during keynote demo
S52026-05Johnson & Johnson (Abiomed)FDA warns on J&J Abiomed Automated Impella Controllers after death linked to software error
S12026-02-27Tier IV Inc. (Umi no Mori Park shuttle bus, Koto City government demonstration)Koto Ward autonomous shuttle bus accident traced to route-deviation detection failure
S22026-01MetrolinxTTC and Metrolinx dispute Eglinton Crosstown LRT brake-issue safety ahead of opening
S32025-11HART (Honolulu)Recurring platform screen-door malfunctions trigger repeated Skyline station outages
S32025-06-23U.S. NavyNavy unmanned surface vessel malfunctions during tow test, capsizes support boat

Other Waymo (Alphabet) entries

Also from Critical Systems Analysis: CSA - functional safety engineering · Company directory · FSTalent - functional safety jobs