4|16
Cruise, the autonomous vehicle subsidiary of the Detroit giant, was the first company to get a green light for a robotaxi service in California.
General Motors (GM) - Get General Motors Company Report had taken a lead in the race to develop the technologies that would make a car completely self-driving.
Its subsidiary Cruise in fact obtained authorization from the Californian authorities on June 2 to operate robotaxis in San Francisco. Basically, self-driving vehicles that can carry people to and from wherever they want to go in the city from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. and only when there’s no "heavy rain, heavy fog, heavy smoke, hail, sleet, or snow.”
The rides are limited to "select streets in San Francisco,” the California Public Utilities Commission said last June. The cars involved can only drive at a maximum speed of 30 mph.
This decision was a first in California and in particular in San Francisco where the inhabitants have been accustomed for a few years to seeing different companies from Cruise to Waymo (Alphabet (GOOGL) - Get Alphabet Inc. Report) circulating self-driving vehicles equipped with cameras and sensors.
None of these firms, however, had been authorized to charge potential customers and circulate their vehicles on the streets of the city without a human being ready to take the wheel in the event of a problem.
Cruise's Robotaxi Involved in Crash
By getting the green light from the authorities for even a limited robotaxi service, Cruise had thus won a huge victory, giving GM and its partners - Walmart (WMT) - Get Walmart Inc. Report and Honda (HMC) - Get Honda Motor Company Ltd. Report - a strong argument to brag about their technological advances against the competition. GM is Cruise's majority shareholder. But the legacy carmaker also has partners like Honda, Walmart and Microsoft (MSFT) - Get Microsoft Corporation Report in this adventure.
But the day after the authorization was granted, an autonomous vehicle (AV) from Cruise found itself in a collision due to a defect which subsequently forced the startup to recall vehicles in order to resolve the problem.
Cruise "is recalling certain automated driving systems (ADS)," the company said in recent documents filed with the National High Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). "The software may, in certain circumstances when making an unprotected left, cause the ADS to incorrectly predict another vehicle's path or be insufficiently reactive to the sudden path change of a road user."