Following a series of safety-related events leading up to a self imposed suspension in October 2023, General Motors-backed (GM) Robotaxi firm Cruise is getting ready to hit the streets again.
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As per a report by Bloomberg, the driverless taxi company is in the works of resuming operations on public roads in the coming weeks, with vehicles deploying in cities such as Dallas and Houston. Unlike its previous operations prior to October 2023, the vehicles will not be entirely autonomous, and will have safety drivers ready to take the wheel if necessary.
The report also said that Cruise is in talks with local officials to ensure a positive reception when it hits the streets to test its cars.
In a statement to Reuters, a spokesperson for Cruise said that the company did not "set a timeline for deployment," and that their goal "is to relaunch in one city with manually driven vehicles and supervised testing as soon as possible once we have taken steps to rebuild trust with regulators and the public."
The GM-backed robotaxi company previously tested vehicles in 10 other cities around the United States, including Nashville, Tenn. and operated an automated taxi service in cities such as Austin, Texas, Phoenix, Ariz., and more notably - San Francisco.
Prior to its October 2023 suspension, Cruise's activities in San Fran were met with backlash both by residents and city officials for various traffic and quality-of-life issues, but more notoriously for its safety record.
The most notorious incident involving its self-driving cars came in early October 2023, where a woman who was initially hit by a human-operated vehicle was thrown into the path of an oncoming Cruise autonomous vehicle and dragged about 20 feet before pulling over. As a result, the company lost its permit to operate in the State of California and halted operations nationwide later the same month.
In a November interview with TheStreet, a Cruise spokesperson maintained that its vehicles were safe around pedestrians - notably children - and emphasized that they have the "lowest risk tolerance" for incidents involving them.
"Our AVs have always detected and exercised appropriate caution around pedestrians, especially child pedestrians," Cruise told TheStreet. "As a company, we are focused on continuously improving the ability of our technology to respond to potential hazards – which is why we proactively run rigorous testings and simulations on an ongoing basis."
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Autonomous vehicles as a whole are under intense scrutiny by the public because of its failings.
On Feburary 10, a Jaguar E-Pace fitted with equipment for Alphabet's Waymo (GOOG) was torched by a crowd in San Francisco's Chinatown in an act of vandalism amidst the historic neighborhood's Lunar New Year celebrations.
Prior to the incident, another Waymo vehicle struck a cyclist at an intersection on Feburary 6, after it failed to detect it. On Feburary 13, the company issued a voluntary recall and software update after two vehicles crashed into the same pickup truck in Phoenix, Arizona in separate incidents in December 2023.
