Days after General Motors? (GM.N) Cruise self-driving car unit pulled all of its vehicles off the roads in the United States for a safety review; it continues to test them on public roads in Dubai and Japan, Reuters has learned. The pause in American operations was prompted by a fatal accident that caught the attention of regulators after one of its autonomous vehicles struck and dragged a pedestrian in October.
Cruise said this week it had paused all car trips in the U.S. — including ones where a safety driver was in the vehicle — and expanded the scope of its internal investigation following an accident in October that caught the attention of regulators. The pause, which includes removing some 950 vehicles from service, reflects “our continuing commitment to ensure that all of our vehicles on the road meet our high standards for safety and reliability,” the company said in a statement.
But the GM unit also said in its statement that it had determined that a crash like that could happen again every 10 million to 100 million miles without an update to the system, adding that it had decided to add a chief safety officer, hire a law firm to review its response to the crash, appoint a third-party engineering firm to find out what went wrong and adopt companywide “pillars” to focus on safety and transparency.
The problems at Cruise could have a ripple effect on the wider autonomous driving industry. Several other companies, including Waymo and Uber Technologies Inc’s (UBER.O) self-driving units, have been forced to scale back their testing programs after being hit by public outrage and regulatory investigations.
Problems at Cruise could also bring stronger federal regulation of autonomous vehicles, which are already being tested in some cities and can carry passengers without a human driver. Earlier this month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into the incident in which the Cruise vehicle struck and dragged a pedestrian in San Francisco.
The incident highlighted a problem with the technology that has plagued the AV industry, where sensors can miss objects in front of the vehicle and fail to detect them. In the case of the accident, the Cruise system misidentified the pedestrian as an object. It commanded the vehicle to pull over out of traffic rather than move to avoid the collision.
GM President Dan Ammann told investors this week that he was confident the problems at Cruise would be resolved and that the company will continue to deploy its robotaxi fleets in the US and overseas. The automaker is working with Honda (HMC.T) to develop a vehicle that will leverage their shared geographic footprints, Ammann added. The two companies also plan to launch a zero-emission vehicle partnership by 2026. GM owns most of Cruise, which was worth $14.6 billion when it received $2.75 billion in new investment from SoftBank Investment Advisers earlier this year.
