Cruise’s self-driving cars are officially back on the road and driving themselves for the first time since one of its self-driving cars towed a pedestrian more than 20 feet in San Francisco.
Cruise said last month it would resume testing of manually driven vehicles with a focus on mapping and gathering road information, small tasks for a company like Cruise with so many self-driving miles under its belt. But Cruise needs to show local officials that it is appropriately sorry for the pedestrian incident, needs to slow down and talk more about safety and trust. The company is deploying its vehicles in Phoenix, Arizona, which has long been a hotbed for autonomous vehicle testing.
Cruise needs to show local officials it has a proper apology
Cruise spokesperson Tiffany Testo said the company is deploying only two self-driving vehicles with safety drivers. Additionally, the company has eight manually driven vehicles in the city. Eventually, the service area will be “progressively expanded” to include Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Tempe, Mesa, Gilbert and Chandler – “measured against predetermined safety baselines.”
Cruise’s slow path back is notable given the huge obstacles the company faced following the October incident. Regulators have accused the company of misleading them about the nature and severity of the incident, in which a pedestrian was dragged more than 20 feet by a self-driving Cruise after he was first struck by a hit-and-run driver.
Since then, several top executives, including founder and CEO Kyle Vogt, have left the company, and about a quarter of its employees have been laid off. General Motors said it would reduce spending on Cruise. An external report has found evidence that a hostile culture towards regulators led to many failures.
With all the problems, GM could have killed the Cruise business. In fact, robo-taxi companies have created a huge financial drag on automakers, losing $3.48 billion in 2023. But instead, GM is sticking with it — and Cruise is preparing to return to the road — a sign that despite the setbacks, the automaker still intends to compete with Waymo, Tesla and others for market share. An autonomous future.
