Friday, April 12, 2024

TechCrunch Mobility: Cruise robotaxis return and Ford's BlueCruise comes under scrutiny

cruise self-driving cars

Both Cruise and Waymo have released studies saying their vehicles are involved in fewer crashes than human drivers. One Waymo study says it has an 85% reduction in injury-causing collisions and a Cruise study says it has a 74% reduction. Ziwen Wan, a Ph.D. candidate in computer science at University of California, Irvine, has studied why driverless cars may be acting this way. He used open source data for his research, so his findings aren't based specifically on Cruise and Waymo. Wan found that ordinary objects on the road can lead to dangerous driving behavior.

cruise self-driving cars

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"Our teams are currently doing an analysis to identify potential enhancements to the AV's response to this kind of extremely rare event," said Navideh Forghani, a Cruise spokesperson. By Andrew J. Hawkins, transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation. A cascade of events followed that ended with Vogt resigning and GM announcing it was pulling hundreds of millions in funding.

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GM's self-driving car company Cruise lost $3.48 billion in 2023 - The Washington Post

GM's self-driving car company Cruise lost $3.48 billion in 2023.

Posted: Wed, 31 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]

It initiated a third-party safety review of its robotaxis and hired an outside law firm to examine its response to the pedestrian incident. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also opened an investigation into Cruise. An activist group called Safe Street Rebel has been cataloging the incidents, which now clock in at more than 500. The group figured out that if they put orange traffic cones on the hoods of driverless cars, they would render the vehicles immobile.

GM’s Cruise robotaxis are back in Phoenix — but people are driving them

But, as robotaxis became increasingly ubiquitous throughout San Francisco, residents complained about near collisions and blunders. Local reports showed footage of confused vehicles clogging a residential cul-de-sac, driving into wet cement at a construction site and regularly running red lights. By August, California had given Cruise permission to run around 300 robotaxis throughout San Francisco. And the company had started testing in several more cities across the country, including Dallas, Miami, Nashville and Charlotte. Safe Street Rebel has cataloged hundreds of near misses and blunders with Cruise and Waymo vehicles over the past few months — even without traffic cones.

How Cruise went from buzzy self-driving startup to 'public safety risk' - Fast Company

How Cruise went from buzzy self-driving startup to 'public safety risk'.

Posted: Mon, 18 Dec 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]

More worrisome to me was that on one of my trips — to a Warriors game at the Chase Center arena — at a busy intersection, a Waymo in front of us wouldn't respond to a traffic cop trying to wave it through a red light. Then another Waymo pulled up beside it and also didn't respond to the cop. So now three Waymos were sitting there, blocking traffic and waiting for the light. The traffic cop stopped trying to move us and just held his hands over his head in disgust.

This week’s wheels

The city is limited in its ability to regulate self-driving cars, she said. In an email to KUT, the company said the decision is not related to any new on-road incidents. The version I drove came in at $97,615, due to all sorts of options, like a 10-degree rear axle steering system, head-up display, air suspension, AMG exterior and a $1,250 driver-assistance system.

Cruise resumes manual driving as next step in return to driverless mission

An Uber self-driving car, operating in full autonomous mode and with a safety driver in the vehicle, killed a pedestrian in Arizona in 2018. Cruise will resume manual driving of its autonomous vehicles to create maps and gather road information in certain cities, starting with Phoenix, the company said Tuesday. The GM subsidiary already had a presence in Phoenix before it pulled its entire U.S.-based fleet last year following an incident in San Francisco that left a pedestrian stuck under and dragged by a Cruise robotaxi. In 2017, Cruise was conducting testing on public roads with Cruise AVs in San Francisco, Scottsdale, Arizona, and the metropolitan Detroit area. Despite public angst over autonomous vehicles, California state regulators voted to allow the companies to expand their robotaxi services in August.

As we begin this journey, we look forward to partnering with local communities to jointly achieve our shared mission of making transportation safer for all. Over the past several weeks we have communicated directly with officials, first responders, and community leaders in cities we’ve previously operated in to share updates on our path forward. We are committed to safely deploying our technology in close collaboration with officials and communities at every step.

cruise self-driving cars

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HysetCo SAS, a startup that rents hydrogen-powered EVs to taxi drivers in Paris, raised nearly €200 million ($218 million) in a round led by Hy24. Exoes, a French-based startup that developed battery cooling technology for EVs, raised €35 million ($37.5 million) from BpiFrance and Meridiam Green Impact Growth Fund. Cruise said in January that it "accepts" the conclusions found in the report. The San Francisco-based company, of which GM owns about 80%, said it will "act on all" recommendations and is "fully cooperating" with investigations by state and federal agencies following the Oct. 2 accident.

The company says it will also work on improved engagement with first responders to facilitate trainings in each precinct it plans to operate in. Prior to that incident, Cruise had been announcing launches in new cities — including Dallas, Houston and Miami — at a startling pace. Critics accused the company of expanding too fast and cutting corners on safety. On Oct. 2, a car hit a woman in a San Francisco intersection and flung her into the path of one of Cruise’s driverless taxis. The Cruise car ran over her, briefly stopped and then dragged her some 20 feet before pulling to the curb, causing severe injuries. We believe driverless technology has the potential to save lives, enhance access and improve communities.

Waymo says it has a permit for 250 cars and it deploys about 100 at any given time. Cruise says it runs 100 in San Francisco during the day and 300 at night. The Department of Motor Vehicles made Cruise cut that number in half after one of its cars collided with a firetruck last week. Austin City Council member Paige Ellis, who chairs the city’s mobility committee, said Austinites had complained the city wasn’t doing enough to vet Cruise.

But the limits are part of a plan by regulators and the company to prove out the safety and efficacy of its system before deploying it in more locations at additional times. The new operating window already extends its total active time by 1.5 hours as compared to the free driverless test pilot service it was offering between June of last year and the debut of this paid service. Forghani said Cruise provided regulators a video of the incident and is complying with the DMV's order and "pausing operations." Those cars that have a human safety driver will be allowed to continue operating in the state. The news that the company will be relying less on its operations staff during its testing comes after Cruise’s safety drivers have complained about a lack of safety standards during the pandemic and subsequent wildfires. They accuse Cruise of deploying its self-driving cars during the spring lockdown in defiance of public health orders banning nonessential travel. And they say Cruise isn’t doing enough to keep them safe during these public health crises.

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