Electronics and Semiconductors

Why Cruise Automation halted robotaxi services in the US

02 November 2023
After a traffic accident with one of its robotaxis caused the DMV to suspend its license, Cruise Automation halted its nationwide testing. Source: Cruise

Late last month, the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) suspended Cruise Automation’s license to test its robotaxis in the state, deeming the vehicles a risk to public safety. Shortly after, Cruise, the autonomous arm of General Motors, took the added measure to suspend all nationwide driverless operations.

Cruise began operating in San Francisco in 2022 and had as many as 70 vehicles operating in the city until it was suspended. Cruise had plans to double its number of robotaxis on the road in San Francisco while simultaneously scaling up its operations to Phoenix, Arizona, Miami, Florida, and Austin, Texas.

While the DMV works with Cruise on its safety issues in the state, Cruise is also under investigation from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for similar concerns of the potential risk of the autonomous vehicles to passengers and pedestrians alike.

Cruise issued a statement on X regarding its decision to shut down operations in the U.S. “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 said.

What went wrong

The California DMV provided Cruise a list of steps needed to reinstate the suspended permits. DMV will not approve permits until Cruise has fulfilled the requirements, the state agency said in a statement.

While the DMV did not specifically name what incidents lead to the suspension, it is likely an accident where a robotaxi ran over a pedestrian who had been hit by another human-driven car. The pedestrian was pulled about 20 feet after becoming pinned under a tire as the robotaxi tried to move off the road.

This incident is eerily similar to the incident with an Uber robotaxi that happened in 2018 when an autonomous vehicle crash led to the death of a pedestrian. The incident caused Uber to pause all testing and later the company exited the autonomous vehicle market due to the problems it continued to have.

This latest incident with Cruise was not the first problem the robotaxi unit has had. Other incidents in California include: A robotaxi turning into incoming traffic and causing injuries; and three incidents where robotaxis braked suddenly causing rear-end collisions with human motorists. There are other incidents where the vehicles randomly pulled over unexpectedly without reason.

The DMV suspended robotaxi competitor Pony.ai in 2021 after one of its autonomous vehicle was involved in an accident where it hit a road divider. That leaves only Alphabet autonomous vehicle arm Waymo as the only company currently testing robotaxis on the streets in California without a safety driver.

Positive response

The move by the DMV was hailed as an appropriate response given the problems with robotaxis.

The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), an association of 100 North American cities to deal with transit and transportation issues, said governments can’t take a wait and see approach when autonomous vehicle testing is causing safety issues.

"In San Francisco and other NACTO member cities, AVs have injured pedestrians, collided with city buses, downed overhead wires and interfered with emergency response efforts,” said Corinne Kisner, executive director of NACTO. “AV testing has expanded with minimal oversight, and city governments often have little say over how their streets are used for testing. This combination puts residents’ and commuters’ safety at risk.”

NACTO is looking for the U.S. and other governments to establish national standards for testing of autonomous vehicles to ensure safety is universal.

The Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) called the DMV suspension the right decision and robotaxis needed measurable safety standards for testing.

“Profit-focused tech executives should have never been allowed to test unproven driverless machines on the streets of one of America’s busiest cities to begin with,” said John Samuelsen, international president of the TWU. “As we have seen, testing fledging driverless technology without a human operator poses serious and life-threatening risks to road users, pedestrians, and other innocent bystanders.”

Like NACTO, TWU called on the U.S. government to establish regulations for autonomous vehicle testing with many states allowing for untested vehicles on the road without oversight or requirements.

To contact the author of this article, email PBrown@globalspec.com


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