Back in November 2023, General Motors’ autonomous driving subsidiary Cruise announced that it was pausing all robotaxi operations across the United States in response to the October 2023 incident where a pedestrian was trapped underneath a Cruise AV after they were struck by a human-driven vehicle. Now, the self-driving company appears to be gearing up to relaunch in Texas.
According to a report from Bloomberg, Houston and Dallas, Texas are emerging as potential locations for Cruise to jumpstart its self-driving operations. More specifically, representatives from the autonomous driving company are currently working with Texas officials in order to ensure a safe return to public streets.
“We have not set a timeline for deployment,” Cruise Spokesperson Pat Morrissey was quoted as stating. “Our goal is to relaunch in one city with manually driven vehicles and supervised testing as soon as possible once we have taken steps to rebuild trust with regulators and the public. We are in the process of meeting with officials in select markets to gather information, share updates and rebuild trust.”
We’ve known that Cruise had plans to resume robotaxi operations for some time now. However, up to this point, the exact city – or potential locations, for that matter – was unknown. That being said, the final spot has yet to be officially confirmed.
As a reminder, Cruise has a long way to go to reach the AV operations it had before the aforementioned October 2023 accident. In fact, Cruise Co-President Mo Elshenawy went so far as to say that the robotaxi company had hit an all-time low, while GM President Mark Reuss acknowledged that although the Cruise is expected to return to U.S. roads within the next year or two, it will likely take at least four to five years to restore public trust in its robotaxi units.
With that mind, relaunching its operations in Texas is just the first step on a winding road for Cruise.
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