Cruise suspends driverless robotaxi operations nationwide
SAN FRANCISCO -- Cruise has halted operations of its driverless cars across the country, the autonomous vehicle company announced Thursday evening.
The move comes after the California Department of Motor Vehicles on Tuesday suspended Cruise LLC's deployment of driverless cars in San Francisco.
The DMV said the vehicles were deemed "not safe for the public's operation" and that the manufacturer "misrepresented" information related to their safety.
In an announcement Thursday posted on X (formerly Twitter), the company said it wanted to rebuild public trust.
"Part of this involves taking a hard look inwards and at how we do work at Cruise, even if it means doing things that are uncomfortable or difficult," according to the company statement.
"In that spirit, 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 company maintained the action wasn't "related to any new on-road incidents," and that supervised AV operations would continue.
Cruise, headquartered in San Francisco, is a subsidiary of General Motors and also operates in Phoenix, Arizona, and in the Texas cities of Austin and Houston.
The California DMV's suspension on Tuesday also didn't affect Cruise's permit for testing of the vehicles with a safety driver inside. Cruise said that the state's action had followed an investigation into an Oct. 2 collision involving one of their autonomous vehicles in the area of Market and Fifth streets in San Francisco.
A hit-and-run driver struck a woman crossing the street against a red light, knocking her into the path of the Cruise vehicle. The company said the vehicle detected a collision and came to a stop, but then tried to pull over to avoid further road safety issues and pulled the woman forward about 20 feet.
Cruise said they shared information about the collision, including the full video, with state and federal regulators, including the DMV and that the company is "currently doing an analysis to identify potential enhancements to the AV's response to this kind of extremely rare event."
(1/3) The most important thing for us right now is to take steps to rebuild public trust. Part of this involves taking a hard look inwards and at how we do work at Cruise, even if it means doing things that are uncomfortable or difficult.
— cruise (@Cruise) October 27, 2023