The robotaxis company had to stop running its vehicles in October following a road accident. These will soon make their return to the roads of San Francisco… but with a driver!
The adventure of autonomous taxis does not go without a hitch. Cruise can attest to this, the company had indeed experienced a very difficult end of the year after one of its taxis hit a person in San Francisco before dragging them several meters. Result, the scandal, and the withdrawal of the driving authorization for these vehicles. But the company is far from having abandoned experimentation. In January, its owner, the giant GM, explained that it still had plans for Cruise. And they will apparently involve the return of drivers behind the wheel.
A robotaxi, with a human in it
How can we reassure public authorities when we develop autonomous taxis which have shown that they can harm humans? Well… by putting the human element back in. That’s what Cruise is going to do. According to information from Bloombergthe company will put robotaxis back on the road, which will return with a human presence behind the wheel.
Still according to the same source, Cruise is targeting Houston and Dallas (Texas) as cities that could serve as theaters for his return, scheduled for the coming weeks. Each city should not see more than 10 of the firm’s cars on the road, and none would welcome any customers. Enough to begin a new phase in the life of American society?
Trust objective
Because things have changed a lot since last fall. Several managers left their positions, while the workforce was reduced by 25%. Cruise now wishes “rebuild trust » with the authorities, and intends to go smoothly in his reconquest operation.
“ We have not set a timetable for deployment. Our goal is to restart activity in a 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 »In this context indicated spokesperson Pat Morrissey.
Source : The Verge, Reuters
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