Cruise self-driving cars suspended in California over safety issues : NPR

Table Of Content

• Watch: Driverless taxi torched by mob in San Francisco
• It's easy to bash tech, but I've started taking robotaxis — and they're awesome
• Who’s responsible when there’s no driver?
• Find your Cruise Car® now!
• The Origin is the GM subsidiary’s first attempt to build an fully autonomous car from the ground up
• Suspension of operations

Thousands of Cruise Cars are in use at federal government properties, military bases worldwide, municipalities, universities and resorts nationwide and in over 40 countries. Cruise ridehail services are not available at this time, but you can join the waitlist to be one of the first. We’re working to bring new transportation options that work for you and your community. But unlike with other Big New Tech innovations I've seen in the past — anyone still have a 3D TV in their living room?

Watch: Driverless taxi torched by mob in San Francisco

According to the DMV, Cruise can only test five driverless vehicles “on specified streets within San Francisco.” The vehicles are not allowed to exceed 30 mph, and can’t operate during heavy fog or heavy rain. And it's reasonable to have concerns about this tech as it rolls out. Waymo's rival Cruise halted its service last fall after a slew of incidents, including a grisly one where a self-driving Cruise dragged a pedestrian who had been hit by a human-driven car.

GM's self-driving car company Cruise lost $3.48 billion in 2023 - The Washington Post

GM's self-driving car company Cruise lost $3.48 billion in 2023.

Posted: Wed, 31 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]

It's easy to bash tech, but I've started taking robotaxis — and they're awesome

The morning after the collision, Cruise showed The Post and other media outlets footage captured by the driverless vehicle. In the video shared via Zoom, the driverless vehicle appeared to brake as soon as it made impact with the woman. Self-driving car company Cruise has suspended operations nationwide, including in Austin. Driverless cars run by Cruise, which is owned by GM, and Waymo, which is owned by Alphabet, have been involved in numerous mishaps in the city over the past several months. They've run red lights, rear-ended a bus and blocked crosswalks and bike paths. I have so many more questions — about the sensor suite, the business model, the testing (if any) that Cruise has conducted — but I’m informed that our time is done.

Who’s responsible when there’s no driver?

The driverless fleet will get the new software before resuming operations, the company says. Forghani said Cruise provided regulators a video of the incident and is complying with the DMV's order and "pausing operations." Those cars that have a human safety driver will be allowed to continue operating in the state. Cruise was the fifth company to receive a driverless permit from the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles, the others being Waymo, Nuro, Zoox, and AutoX. Currently, 60 companies have an active permit to test autonomous vehicles with a safety driver in California. Cruise has not announced when or where it will resume driverless operations. The company’s main operations were historically based in San Francisco, but Cruise lost its permits to operate there following the accident.

Find your Cruise Car® now!

By Andrew J. Hawkins, transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation.

And it will most likely need another exemption before the Origin is allowed to hit the road, too. Problems at Cruise could slow the deployment of fully autonomous vehicles that carry passengers without human drivers on board. It also could bring stronger federal regulation of the vehicles, which are carrying passengers in more cities nationwide.

Cruise (autonomous vehicle)

According to a Washington Post analysis of the data, the companies collectively report millions of miles on public roads every year, along with hundreds of mostly minor accidents. “We have decided to proactively pause driverless operations across all of our fleets while we take time to examine our processes, systems, and tools and reflect on how we can better operate in a way that will earn public trust,” the email said. The DMV originally gave Cruise a permit for 300 driverless vehicles in San Francisco, but it cut that number in half after one of its cars collided with a firetruck in August. Even so, Cruise isn’t the first company to build and test a self-driving car without traditional controls.

Commercial Accounts

California Assembly member Phil Ting (D), whose district includes San Francisco, said the DMV did “the right thing” by suspending the permits when it learned the full extent of the crash. While state legislators are grappling with how to control this rapidly developing industry, he said the DMV already has a rigorous permit approval process for autonomous vehicles. Cruise, for example, said it has received seven different permits over the past few years from the DMV to operate in California. "We need actual people behind the wheel with a pulse and a brain that know how to maneuver in sticky situations," San Francisco Supervisor Shamann Walton said at Tuesday rally protesting the driverless cars. "These Cruise vehicles are dangerous on our streets. When they see tragedy or see danger or there's an obstacle in their way, all they know how to do is freeze."

Driverless Cruise car accused of almost hitting kids in two separate close calls one day apart - NBC Bay Area

Driverless Cruise car accused of almost hitting kids in two separate close calls one day apart.

Posted: Mon, 05 Feb 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]

Sensors can see 360 degrees, hundreds of feet ahead, and around that double-parked car. Cruise cars make sense of this data in a split second, tracking every important object in view. Cruise rebuts the DMV’s account, saying “shortly after the incident, our team proactively shared information” with state and federal investigators. Now Cruise appears to be going back to basics, a sharp pivot away from the aggressive growth strategy the company has been pursuing for the last few years.

Critics accused the company of expanding too fast and cutting corners on safety. Austin City Council member Paige Ellis, who chairs the city’s mobility committee, said Austinites had complained the city wasn’t doing enough to vet Cruise. The city is limited in its ability to regulate self-driving cars, she said. The not-a-car sits on the gleaming black stage surrounded by a halo of light. It’s orange and black and white, and roughly the same size as a crossover SUV, but somehow looks much larger from the outside.

I think the people behind the tech will figure out its possibilities, its limitations, and the places it does and doesn't make sense. Waymo, which is owned by Google's parent company, Alphabet, has a couple hundred self-driving cars roaming around San Francisco, and access is still limited there via a waiting list, as well as by geography. You can't get a Waymo to pick you up at San Francisco International Airport, for instance, or take you across the Bay Bridge to Oakland. Which is exactly how I felt after my last trip to San Francisco, when I took several rides in Waymo's robotaxis. The human-driven car fled the scene, while the Cruise remained until officials arrived. Prior to that incident, Cruise had been announcing launches in new cities — including Dallas, Houston and Miami — at a startling pace.

The move comes after one of Cruise's driverless cars struck a pedestrian in downtown San Francisco earlier this month. The incident involved a woman who was first hit by a human driver and then thrown onto the road in front of a Cruise vehicle. The Cruise vehicle braked but then continued to roll over the pedestrian, pulling her forward, then coming to a final stop on top of her. California has ordered the company Cruise to immediately stop operations of its driverless cars in the state. The Department of Motor Vehicles said on Tuesday that it was issuing the indefinite suspension because of safety issues with the vehicles. Cruise was approved to test fully driverless cars (also called Level 4 in industry parlance) in California on October 15th.

Experts estimate that each self-driving car could cost upward of $300,000-$400,000, when taking into account the expensive sensors and computing software needed to allow the vehicles to drive themselves. Recouping those costs will be enormously challenging, and Cruise is trying to address that by building a car with more staying power than most personally owned vehicles. Inside are two bench seats facing each other, a pair of screens on either end... The absence of all the stuff you expect to see when climbing into a vehicle is jarring.