GM’s Cruise Cars Are Back on the Road in Three US States—But Not for Ride-Hailing
Cruise robotaxis are Back on the road … well, in a way. Although General Motors disconnected its autonomous taxi activity last year, the car manufacturer discreetly reoriented some of the vehicles while seeing to develop new conductive assistance technologies.
This week, Wired spotted a GM Bolt electric sedan on the Baie de San Francisco-Oakland bridge, and then saw a similar vehicle on the Interstate 880 near Oakland. In each case, the car was driven by a human. But he held equipment on the roof such as the LIDAR sensors which looked like the configuration of the cruise transport system. The vehicle had “mint” written on the hood, but did not include any visually apparent cruise brand.
GM spokesperson, Chaiti Sen, confirms to Wired that the company “uses a limited number of cruise bolts on certain Michigan, Texas and Bay motorways to test with trained drivers to further develop simulation models and advanced driver systems.” She adds: “These are internal tests and does not imply public passengers.”
GM removed the orange-and white cruise logo from the sides of the cars after taking the unit property in February, she says. The recent activity began in Michigan and Texas in February and in the region of the San Francisco Bay region in mid-April, says Sen. Cruise had appointed each vehicle in its fleet, and Sen confirmed that “Mint” was one of the newly active vehicles in the bay region.
The tests show for the first time how GM begins to give a second life to a fleet of less than hundreds of vehicles from an expensive project that has failed.
GM initially acquired a majority participation in Cruise based in San Francisco in 2016 and invested more than $ 8 billion in the development of a Robotaxi service. The operation began to start quickly and looked at a rapid expansion until October 2023, when a cruise vehicle hit a pedestrian in San Francisco which had just been hit by a vehicle with a human pattern.
In the aftermath of the incident, Cruise misleads state regulators, lost a key permit, interrupted operations and dismissed a quarter of his workers.
After a few attempts to restart the company, GM announced last December that the experience would be completely canceled. At the time, the CEO of GM, Mary Barra, told analysts that the management of a Robotaxi fleet was an expensive distraction in the manufacture of cars.
But technology behind Cruise helps improve the 7 -year -old Super cruise system in some GM cars. It aims to help drivers stay and change track, or apply the emergency brake without having to use their hands.
Several car manufacturers run to develop cars that unload an increasing amount of driving tasks to computers. GM claims that around 60% of its 360,000 Super Cruise customers regularly use capacity.
In the United States, the Robotaxime industry was dominated by Waymo, although Tesla and the Amazon of Elon Musk Zoox are among those who continue to try to catch up.
GM’s reused bolts mix in the roads of the San Francisco region, on which cars with robust computer equipment attached to the roof, back and sides have become commonplace. They include not only companies that test sensors and algorithms, but also card providers collecting data and amateurs who try to upgrade their personal rides.
