GM Cruise is testing robotaxis again in Dallas
G.M.’s Cruise company is redeploying a small fleet of robotaxis in Dallas this week, part of the company’s previously announced goal to validate its self-driving systems and win back the public’s trust.
Dallas is the second city where Cruise has recalled its entire U.S. bus fleet late last year, following an incident in San Francisco where a pedestrian was run over and dragged by a Cruise robotaxi.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles immediately suspended Cruise’s permit to operate in the state following the crash and revelations that Cruise leadership had not properly communicated with state and federal regulators about what happened that day.
The Dallas fleet will be small — just three vehicles — and they won’t carry passengers or drive fully autonomously yet. As Cruise did in Phoenix in April, human operators will manually drive the cars around Dallas to collect mapping and road data. Going forward, Cruise will expand into supervised driving, which will be “measured against predetermined safety benchmarks,” according to a Cruise spokesperson, who didn’t elaborate on those benchmarks.
Cruise had just begun testing its robotaxi in Dallas when the incident in San Francisco forced the company to ground its entire fleet. Cruise also began limited robotaxi service in Austin and Houston, making it a first foray into robotaxi in Texas.
As TechCrunch has already speculated, Texas could be the next battleground state for the commercial use of autonomous vehicles. The state is already a hub for testing autonomous trucks, as the state’s skies are clear and sunny and the legislative landscape is favorable.
Cruise is said to still try to relaunch in California, where it is based, to compete with Alphabet’s Waymo. Earlier this year, Waymo got the green light to operate commercially on San Francisco’s freeways and in Los Angeles. The DMV confirmed to TechCrunch in April that Cruise was in contact with the agency to begin the reinstatement process.
Cruise didn’t share any specifics about its rollout strategy, but one thing is clear: Cruise is opting for a slow and steady approach, as its previous aggressive launch strategy resulted in accusations that Cruise was expanding too fast and cutting corners on safety.