The self-driving car company has deployed a small fleet of Chevrolet Bolt EVs in Phoenix, Arizona.
April 11, 2024 in 3pm ET
Cruise, the self-driving technology subsidiary of General Motors, is testing a battery-powered Chevrolet Bolt EV as a robot taxi on the streets of Phoenix, Arizona. But this time is different.
Last year, Cruise Corp. suffered a rough patch when its driverless taxis were caught on camera getting stuck in wet cement, tangled in warning tape and stuck in self-created traffic jams. However, while these incidents were mostly funny and harmless, the situation worsened significantly in October 2023 when a woman was hit by a human-driven vehicle and then hit by a cruise robo-taxi, sustaining serious injuries. .
Cruise is back, I guess.
GM's Cruise Robotaxi business is bringing robotaxis back to the streets of Phoenix, Arizona. However, this time there are no passengers and the car does not drive itself. Instead, a safety driver pilots an all-electric Chevrolet Bolt EV while gathering information about their surroundings.
After the San Francisco accident, Cruise came under intense scrutiny, and the company eventually pulled all of its driverless Bolt EVs from the road. An independent investigation found that the General Motors subsidiary hid details of the accident from investigators, regulators and the media. Cruise's CEO had resigned and layoffs were underway, but the company kept telling everyone that its cars would be back on the road in some form, albeit on a smaller scale than before.
That's exactly what happened. Cruise announced in a blog post on his official website that he will resume service in Phoenix, but without passengers and with human-driven vehicles. In other words, people won't be able to use ride-hailing services and cars won't be able to drive themselves.
Instead, Cruise uses its car, without the self-driving system activated, to create maps and collect road information such as speed limits, stop signs, traffic lights, painted lanes, and right-turn lanes. The company plans to expand these operations to other U.S. cities, but did not say what that would look like.
Gallery: GM Cruise driverless taxi
7 photograph
The next step is to deploy the AV on city streets and let it do the driving, with a safety driver sitting behind the wheel and taking over if needed.
“Our goal is to earn trust, build partnerships with communities, and ultimately work with cities to return to fully driverless operations,” Cruz said.
GM CEO Marie Barra once said Cruise and its self-driving technology could generate up to $50 billion in revenue by the end of 2010. But in reality, the American automaker has lost more than $8 billion on Cruise since 2016.
