Cruise’s autonomous vehicles return to Phoenix—this time with safety drivers

Cruise is bringing supervised autonomous driving back to Phoenix this week, more than six months after the company pulled all of its self-driving cars off the road following regulatory scrutiny.

“Safety is the defining principle for everything we do and continues to guide our progress towards resuming driverless operations,” the company wrote in a blog post. Cruise plans to gradually expand to Arizona’s Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Tempe, Mesa, Gilbert and Chandler. It hasn’t given a timeline on returning to other states, such as California or Texas. It also is unclear when it will begin offering fully driverless rides again.

Cruise faced intense pressure last year after a number of incidents showed vehicles stopping suddenly or obstructing emergency responses in San Francisco. The city ordered Cruise to cut its fleet in half while it investigated. Cruise complied and kept operating until its response to an October crash came into view.

A car hit a woman in San Francisco and flung her into the path of a Cruise driverless vehicle. The autonomous car hit the woman, stopped, and then dragged her roughly 20 feet as it pulled to the curb. The California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended Cruise’s permit to operate its self-driving cars in the state, citing “an unreasonable risk to public safety.”

Since then, the General Motors-backed company has been on a mission to restore public trust. Cruise voluntarily pulled all its driverless operations across the country, hired outside law and engineering firms to review the situation, and implemented a leadership shakeup.

https://www.fastcompany.com/91124323/cruises-autonomous-vehicles-return-to-phoenix-this-time-with-safety-drivers?partner=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&utm_content=rss

Created 9mo | May 13, 2024, 9:10:03 PM


Login to add comment

Other posts in this group

This app sends faxes for free from your iPhone, Android device, Mac, or PC

Nowadays, when you hear someone talk about faxing, there’s a decent chance it’s the punchline to a groan-inducing dad joke. (Not that I would ever be guilty of such silliness, of course.

Feb 8, 2025, 7:50:03 AM | Fast company - tech
Amazon to pay nearly $4 million for allegedly taking drivers’ tips

Amazon has agreed to pay nearly $4 million to settle charges that the e-commerce company subsidized its labor costs by taking tips its&nbsp

Feb 7, 2025, 10:30:08 PM | Fast company - tech
‘It just didn’t go the way I planned’: Hawk Tuah girl breaks silence after crypto scandal

Following a cryptocurrency scandal in December 2024, Haliey Welch (aka Hawk Tuah girl) seemed to

Feb 7, 2025, 10:30:07 PM | Fast company - tech
Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses are having their Super Bowl moment

It’s game time for Meta’s wearables: The tech giant has bought two ad spots for its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses during Sunday’s Super Bowl broadcast, including one that has Chris Hemsworth and Chri

Feb 7, 2025, 8:20:05 PM | Fast company - tech
‘A true victim of the Snapchat era’: Parents are resurfacing hilariously filtered baby photos from the 2010s

If you scroll through your old photos from the mid-2010s—the golden era of Snapchat—chances are a fai

Feb 7, 2025, 8:20:04 PM | Fast company - tech
OpenAI launches cross-country search to build data center sites for the Stargate project

OpenAI is scouring the U.S. for sites to build a network of huge data centers to power

Feb 7, 2025, 5:50:07 PM | Fast company - tech
‘It’s not only centered around video anymore’: Zoom’s CEO explains the video conference giant’s next act

Zoom made a name for itself during the pandemic, becoming synonymous with video conference calls. But the company

Feb 7, 2025, 1:20:06 PM | Fast company - tech