▲Photos related to GM Cruise (Photo source: Reuters)


No safety personnel on board, top speed 48 km/h
For safety reasons, the facility will not operate in bad weather.

GM Cruise has been granted permission to operate 30 autonomous taxis in San Francisco, making it the first company in the state to operate a driverless robotaxi service without safety personnel on board.

Reuters reported on the 3rd (local time) that GM Cruise is commercially operating driverless taxis in some areas of downtown San Francisco.
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved Cruise's paid autonomous robotaxi operation plan, submitted in November of last year, by a vote of 4 to 0 on the 2nd (local time).

This will allow GM Cruise to operate 30 autonomous Chevrolet Bolt electric taxis in less crowded areas of San Francisco from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., traveling at speeds of up to 30 miles per hour (48 km/h) within a few weeks.

The CPUC, which has determined that fully autonomous driving is still dangerous, has prohibited driving on highways and in heavy rain and fog to minimize damage to public safety and facilities.

There is also a long-standing, unresolved problem: we cannot always accurately predict how pedestrians and drivers will react in any given situation.

Brandon Basso, Cruise's senior director, spoke last year about "kinematic uncertainty," and how it affects human behavior on the road.The challenge autonomous vehicles face in predicting the behavior of other vehicles and deciding when to yield has always been there, he said.

GM Cruise said it is “preparing for uncertainty by taking safety measures into its vehicles.”

Waymo, Uber, and Tesla also attempted to commercialize driverless taxis, but failed.

Waymo operates self-driving taxis in some areas of San Francisco, but they have drivers on board just in case. Uber also sold its self-driving division to Aurora in 2020, and Tesla has also failed to achieve this.

There are also considerable concerns about GM Cruise's driverless taxis. Auckland Transport Commissioner Ryan Russo expressed concern, saying, "We haven't seen the autonomous taxis with our own eyes yet," and the Associated Press questioned the safety of GM Cruise's driverless taxis, which cannot pick up or drop off passengers at curbs and must double-park.