G M.s Cruise Moved Fast in the Driverless Race. It Got Ugly. The New York Times

Table Of Content

• Incidents
• Driverless by design
• Plus, a Faraday Future whistleblower case and humanoid robots in car factories
• A pedestrian incident and an alleged cover-up
• Cruise recalls all self-driving cars after grisly accident and California ban
• Cruise resumes manual driving as next step in return to driverless mission
• The Cruise Safety Report: Advancing our safety mission through a transparent and holistic approach

Part of this, he says, is because the cars are programmed to be overly conservative. The company responded by pulling all its driverless vehicles off the roads, citing a need to regain public trust. General Motors' Cruise self-driving vehicle unit will redeploy cars on U.S. roadways Tuesday for the first time since October, beginning with a small fleet of human-driven vehicles in Phoenix, the company said.

Incidents

Our goal is to earn trust and build partnerships with the communities such that, ultimately, we resume fully driverless operations in collaboration with a city. Safety is the defining principle for everything we do and will guide our progress through this process. To make streets safer, he said in an interview, cities should embrace self-driving cars like those designed by Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors. They do not get distracted, drowsy or drunk, he said, and being programmed to put safety first meant they could substantially reduce car-related fatalities.

People are afraid of self-driving cars — can the industry change that? - The Verge

People are afraid of self-driving cars — can the industry change that?.

Posted: Tue, 16 Apr 2024 20:00:00 GMT [source]

Driverless by design

Both former employees have filed lawsuits claiming the troubled EV company has been lying about some of the few sales it has announced to date. They also claim founder Jia Yueting has “weaponized” the EV startup’s HR department to retaliate against anyone who speaks up about these alleged misrepresentations. Driverless cars run by Cruise, which is owned by GM, and Waymo, which is owned by Alphabet, have been involved in numerous mishaps in the city over the past several months. They've run red lights, rear-ended a bus and blocked crosswalks and bike paths. "When there is an unreasonable risk to public safety, the DMV can immediately suspend or revoke permits," the DMV wrote in a statement.

Plus, a Faraday Future whistleblower case and humanoid robots in car factories

The service is starting out small and will build based on demand and performance metrics, a Waymo spokesperson told TechCrunch. Cruise said its "goal is to resume driverless operations," however it did not provide a timeline for doing so. It also did not announce a timetable for expanding human-driven vehicles to other cities. The redeployed vehicles will not operate as they previously did — as robotaxis — but will "create maps and gather road information in select cities, starting in Phoenix," the company said. The era of commercial autonomous robotaxi service is here — Cruise officially became the first company to offer fared rides to the general public in a major city as of late Wednesday. The milestone comes after Cruise received official approval from the California Public Utilities Commission in early June to operate driverless in a commercial capacity.

This work is done using human-driven vehicles without autonomous systems engaged, and is a critical step for validating our self-driving systems as we work towards returning to our driverless mission. This will help inform where we ultimately will resume driverless operations. The 2 October crash prompted Cruise to suspend driverless operations nationwide after California regulators found that its cars posed a danger to public safety. The state’s department of motor vehicles revoked the license for Cruise, which was transporting passengers without human drivers throughout San Francisco. Koopman says the safety narrative can unravel when people see the driverless cars on city streets making the same mistakes as human drivers. He says he'd like to see the companies focus on making sure the technology is actually safe.

G.M.'s Cruise Moved Fast in the Driverless Race. It Got Ugly. - The New York Times

G.M.'s Cruise Moved Fast in the Driverless Race. It Got Ugly..

Posted: Fri, 03 Nov 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Cruise recalls all self-driving cars after grisly accident and California ban

"We're on a trajectory that most businesses dream of, which is exponential growth," Vogt said during a July call with investors. He boasted about the size of Cruise's driverless car fleet, adding that "you will see several times this scale within the next six months." "The software can make the autonomous vehicle behave as conservatively as possible because a safety violation would be very serious," Wan says. "But this may lead to concerns on the other side, like in some cases, even though it's safe it will fail to drive normally." Within the infotainment center, the driver can choose either “manual” or “automatic” lane change options.

They've tallied 55 incidents where self-driving cars have gotten in the way of rescue operations in just the past six months. Both Cruise and Waymo say their vehicles are far safer than human drivers and compared to humans they've had relatively few incidents. They say they've driven millions of driverless miles without any human fatalities or life-threatening injuries.

Services

It began with human safety drivers on board who were there to make sure everything ran smoothly. Cruise says in documents posted by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that it already has updated software in test vehicles that are being supervised by human safety drivers. The driverless fleet will get the new software before resuming operations, the company says.

General Motors’ Cruise is redeploying robotaxis in Phoenix after nearly five months of paused operations, the company said in a blog post. California’s Department of Motor Vehicles last week accused Cruise of omitting the dragging of the woman from a video of the incident it initially provided to the agency. The D.M.V. said the company had “misrepresented” its technology and told Cruise to shut down its driverless car operations in the state. "To be clear, human drivers will text, they'll be distracted. There's the saying, 'the lights are on, but nobody's home,'" Koopman says. Meanwhile, The Intercept reported that Cruise cars had difficulty detecting children, according to internal documents. And The New York Times reported that remote human workers had to intervene to control Cruise's driverless vehicles every 2.5 to five miles.

When the automatic feature is selected and the ADAS is on, the vehicle will make automatic lane changes without driver input. As the car approached slower traffic, an arrow appeared on the instrument cluster (see photo), the system turned my indicator on and then made the lane change. This can be overridden by holding the steering wheel and keeping it in the lane. It was another wild week in the world of transportation, particularly in the EV startup and automated driving industries. The relaunch comes after the company ceased operations weeks after an Oct. 2 accident in which a pedestrian in San Francisco was dragged 20 feet by a Cruise robotaxi after being struck by a separate vehicle.

Members of Safe Street Rebel place a cone on a self-driving Cruise car in San Francisco. “As someone who has honestly dealt with Cruise cars myself … it never seemed like they were ready for prime time,” he said. What I really wanted to try was the advanced driver-assistance system, and specifically the automatic lane change feature, which I had yet to test.

Cruise’s vehicles all have an emergency switch in the center channel near the gear shift in case something goes wrong, and they are also monitored remotely by Cruise employees. Asked whether remote operators are able to take control of the vehicle when needed, Ammann declined to answer. We partner with cities to provide services that support communities through driverless ridehail and delivery. Cruise said its car "braked aggressively to minimize the impact." It provided some news outlets with video of the incident, which ended right after the driverless car hit the woman.

But in certain circumstances such as a pedestrian positioned on the ground in the vehicle’s path, pulling over is not the desired response. In the crash, another vehicle with a person behind the wheel struck a pedestrian, sending the person into the path of a Cruise autonomous vehicle. But it then pulled to the right to get out of traffic, pulling the person about 20ft (six meters) forward. The pedestrian was pinned under one of the Cruise vehicle’s tires and was critically injured. The company said in documents posted by US safety regulators on Wednesday that with the updated software, Cruise vehicles will remain stationary should a similar incident occur in the future. In a video released by the company, a Cruise employee is seen in the passenger seat while the car drives itself through the darkened streets of San Francisco.

Despite the bumps in the road, both Waymo and Cruise are rapidly expanding their robo-taxi programs throughout the U.S. Waymo is already giving rides in Phoenix and is testing with human safety drivers in Los Angeles and Austin. And Cruise is offering rides in Phoenix and Austin and testing in Dallas, Houston, Miami, Nashville and Charlotte.

The company had been planning to roll out a ride service in San Francisco and three other cities and begin testing Cruise vehicles on the streets of several other markets. It now plans to focus on only one city as it works to improve the operation of its fleet of driverless vehicles it has been testing. "In October 2023, we paused operations of our fleet to focus on rebuilding trust with regulators and the communities we serve, and to redesign our approach to safety," Cruise said in a blog post. Still, the company called the relaunched fleet with human drivers "a critical step for validating our self-driving systems as we work towards returning to our driverless mission." Last week, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into Cruise citing pedestrian safety concerns.

Other backers include Finnish Industry Investment, Constructor Capital, Business Finland, the European Innovation Council and private investors. The Cruise system “inaccurately characterized the collision as a lateral collision and commanded the AV to attempt to pull over out of traffic, pulling the individual forward rather than remaining stationary,” the company said. Rescuers used the jaws of life to remove the vehicle and free the woman.