Skip to main content

Robotaxi firm Cruise ordered to halve fleet following incidents

Autonomous car company Cruise has been told by regulators to halve its robotaxi fleet in San Francisco following a crash with a fire truck on Thursday in which the driverless car’s passenger suffered minor injuries.

The regulator — the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) — said that it’s looking into “recent concerning incidents” involving self-driving Cruise cars operating on the city’s public roads.

Recommended Videos

The decision comes just days after California’s Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), which oversees commercial passenger services, made a landmark decision when it voted to allow Cruise and another leading operator of driverless cars — Waymo — to expand their paid ridesharing services in the city to all hours of the day instead of just quieter periods.

The DMV’s request means General Motors-backed Cruise will now operate no more than 50 autonomous vehicles during the day and 150 at night until further notice.

“Safety of the traveling public is the California DMV’s top priority,” the state regulator said in a release shared on Friday evening, adding that it was looking at other “recent concerning incidents involving Cruise vehicles in San Francisco.”

Cruises’ San Francisco general manager Greg Dietrerich said in a post on Friday that the company’s “primary concern remains with our passenger and their well-being. We have been in contact to offer support and will remain in touch.”

Discussing the crash, he noted that there were “many aspects that looked typical from the autonomous vehicle’s perspective and several factors that added complexity to this specific incident.”

Dietrerich said that the intersection where the crash took place is hard for both humans and autonomous driving systems to view clearly, adding that while the Cruise car was successfully tracking the fire truck, its path “was complicated by the fact that the emergency vehicle was in the oncoming lane of traffic, which it had moved into to bypass the red light.”

The Cruise AV identified the risk of a collision and initiated a braking maneuver that reduced its speed, “but was ultimately unable to avoid the collision,” Dietrerich said.

Defending Cruise’s technology, he noted that during more than 3 million miles of fully autonomous driving in the city, its self-driving cars have seen “an enormous number” of emergency vehicles, adding: “We realize that we’ll always encounter challenging situations, which is why continuous improvement is central to our work.”

The incident is the latest in a growing number of blunders involving self-driving cars operated by Cruise and Waymo in San Francisco, with both companies retaining the hope of launching fully fledged robotaxi services in more cities in the coming years.

Only last week, a Waymo car had to be hauled back onto the street after becoming stuck in wet concrete. In another incident, a Cruise vehicle was involved in a low-speed collision when it became confused by the movement of an articulated bus. Other incidents have involved numerous Waymo cars visiting one particular dead-end street, while others have become confused while driving in the city’s famous fog.

Last week’s decision by the CPUC flew in the face of recent calls by San Francisco officials to slow the expansion of robotaxi testing until the technology is further improved.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Waymo’s Hyundai robotaxi deal may steal the show from Tesla
A Hyundai Ioniq 5 is equipped as a robotaxi.

Just days ahead of Tesla’s much anticipated robotaxi event on Thursday, Hyundai unveiled a partnership with Waymo that will add Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 to the fleet of the robotaxi operator.In the first phase of the partnership, Waymo will integrate its sixth-generation fully autonomous technology, called the Waymo Driver, into the all-electric Ioniq 5 SUV, which will be added to the Waymo One fleet over time.On-road testing with Waymo-enabled Ioniq 5s is due to start in late 2025 and become available to riders of the Waymo One robotaxi service the following year.Alphabet-owned Waymo currently operates the only functioning robotaxi service in the U.S., with a fleet of about 700 self-driving vehicles already on the road in Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The service is also being tested in Austin, Texas.Last year, General Motors’ competing robotaxi service Cruise had to stop operations after one of its vehicles struck a pedestrian in San Francisco. Cruise’s GM vehicles are nonetheless expected to resume operations next year through a partnership with Uber.Driverless vehicles have stumbled on two main obstacles on the road to commercialization: The complexity of the technology and tight safety regulations.For now, Waymo’s existing footprint gives it a marked advantage over its competitors. Its sixth-generation technology is said to handle a wider array of weather conditions with fewer on-board cameras and sensors. In their joint statement, Waymo and Hyundai emphasized the proven safety of both the Waymo technology and the Ioniq 5. Waymo’s technology relies on pre-mapped roads, sensors, cameras, radar and lidar (a laser-light radar). It's an approach that might be very costly but has met the approval of safety regulators. All this adds pressure on Tesla to deliver the goods with the launch of its robotaxi -- expected to be called the Cybercab.Tesla’s ambition has been to eventually provide full driverless capacity directly to consumers. Tesla owners can already buy software called Full Self-Driving (FSD) that operates like an advanced driver assistance system and requires constant driver supervision.Tesla’s FSD relies on multiple onboard cameras to feed machine-learning models that, in turn, help the car make decisions based on what it sees.The technology, however, has not yet convinced all current and former traffic safety officials.

Read more
Uber to bring robotaxis to its ridesharing app via Cruise deal
A passenger getting into a Cruise robotaxi.

Uber and autonomous car specialist Cruise are teaming up to offer robotaxi rides starting as early as next year.

Ridesharing giant Uber announced the multiyear partnership on Thursday, saying it will use Cruise’s modified Chevy Bolt vehicles for the service.

Read more
Honking robotaxis are keeping San Francisco residents awake at night
Waymo Jaguar I-Pace

There are lots of noises to keep you awake at night when you live in a big city. Think busy traffic, police sirens, barking dogs, driverless cars. Wait ... driverless cars?!?

Well, for folks in the San Francisco neighborhood of South of Market, autonomous cars do indeed appear to be a problem. Or, more specifically, autonomous cars' honking.

Read more