As GM Authority reported back in October 2023, Cruise – General Motors’ autonomous driving subsidiary – voluntarily paused all driverless operations across the United States. While it previously stated that it would continue to allow rides with a safety driver on board, Cruise has now suspended all rides.
According to an update on its website, Cruise has frozen all supervised and manual Cruise AV trips in the U.S. Notably, the self-driving subsidiary has also expanded investigations into its analysis of the incident that served as the catalyst for the recent calamity. More specifically, Exponent – a consulting firm that evaluates complex software systems – will now perform a more thorough review of Cruise’s safety systems and technology.
“This orderly pause is a further step to rebuild public trust while we undergo a full safety review,” Cruise claimed in a prepared statement. “We will continue to operate our vehicles in closed course training environments and maintain an active simulation program in order to stay focused on advancing AV technology.”
It’s worth noting that this development follows a November 13th Cruise board meeting in San Francisco. In addition, the autonomous driving company stated that it had retained the Quinn Emanuel law firm to examine its response to the accident.
As a reminder, the incident previously referred to is the one where a pedestrian was unintentionally trapped and dragged underneath a Cruise AV unit after being struck seconds before by a human-driven vehicle. As one may imagine, this caused quite the uproar, leading to an NHTSA investigation and California DMV driverless permit suspension.
In an attempt to address the specific issue that lead to the accident, Cruise released a recall to update the collision detection system in its Cruise AV robotaxis, which now provides provisions in the case of another pedestrian-related incident.
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Comments
Wasted billions rather than improve some core products…GM management at its best #moneypit!
Remember Mary Barra got in cohosh with board members and fired the Co-CEO of GM because he wanted to rid the shareholders of this horrendous $money spending start-up -We can definitely blame this squarely on Mary Barra. And she awarded herself a huge bonus on top pf this