Cruise launches driverless robotaxi testing in San Francisco
Over the past few weeks, Cruise, a self-driving company, has shared videos of its employees riding driverless robotaxis around San Francisco.
Even Mary Barra, CEO and chair of GM, which owns Cruise, took a ride. She called her first driverless trip "surreal" and "a highlight of her career" as an engineer. Now the service appears to be open to the public.
Cruise announced that it is "opening" its driverless cars in San Francisco to the public. The company's website has a sign-up form for members of the public who want to ride. Kyle Vogt, acting CEO, CTO and co-founder, said the service will be open to a small number of users and will expand over time.
“We are approaching this deployment with care. This has never been done before in a major US city, so we will expand the service area, hours and more as we learn what works and what doesn't”
For now, rides through the Cruise Rider Community program are free. Members of the public who join the waitlist will not have to sign a non-disclosure agreement before using the service. The company also says on its website that it will "soon be coming to other cities."
“I still can't believe I get to write these words. This moment has really snuck up on me. I work on these cars every day and see every inch of progress. Just three months ago, I took the first fully driverless ride through a major US city, and it was incredible. When Sourdough pulled up with no one inside and took me on a calm drive through the streets of San Francisco, I knew we had built something special. Now it's time to share it”
Cruise holds the three permits required by the California Department of Motor Vehicles to test, deploy and carry passengers in driverless vehicles. The company has also applied for a permit from the California Public Utilities Commission to charge fares for rides, but it does not appear to have received it yet.
Cruise is allowed to operate five robotaxis in certain parts of San Francisco. The company's vehicles are permitted to operate from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. at a maximum speed of 48.2 km/h. The DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) allows Cruise to operate its robotaxis in light rain and fog. The company has been able to test autonomous cars with safety drivers on public roads in California since 2015, and driverless autonomous cars since October 2020.
Although Cruise's robotaxi service is open only to a small number of residents in a small area of San Francisco, it is an important milestone for the robotaxi industry. It appears to be the first driverless robotaxi service that is somewhat launched and operating in a major US city with complex traffic conditions.
Vogt has often spoken about the difficulties of driving in San Francisco. According to him, testing first in the most challenging places means Cruise can scale faster than if it started with simpler areas. This is, of course, a reference to Waymo, which launched the world's first driverless robotaxi service in late 2020. The service covers a 129.5 km² area in suburban Phoenix. Autonomous driving in the suburbs of Phoenix is not an easy task, but the environment is not as demanding as in San Francisco.
Cruise and Waymo have been competing for years, but Cruise is further legitimizing itself with this public launch. Waymo also received a permit to offer robotaxi rides to members of the public in California. The company's permit allows it to use its autonomous vehicles in certain parts of San Francisco and San Mateo counties.
However, the vehicles must have drivers behind the wheel responsible for people's safety. Waymo's vehicles are approved to operate on public roads with a speed limit of no more than 104.6 km/h, and can also operate in rain and light fog. The DMV did not specify a time frame for how long Waymo vehicles may operate.
A number of Chinese self-driving companies made significant progress in 2021. Recently, Alibaba-backed AutoX expanded its driverless robotaxi area to 1000 km² in Shenzhen, China. AutoX has offered the public fully driverless robotaxi services since January 2021. After one year of operation, the service area in Shenzhen has gradually expanded and become the largest fully driverless robotaxi zone in China.
AutoX claims the video shows one of the company's driverless robotaxis moving through the expanded service area for a total of nearly six hours without any disengagements.
Cruise also announced that it received $1.35 billion from SoftBank Vision Fund. Although technically this is new funding, it was part of an original plan the companies agreed to in 2018. In 2018, SoftBank Vision Fund invested $900 million in Cruise, backed by GM, and planned to commit another $1.35 billion when Cruise was ready to scale its operations.
In his blog post, Vogt wrote that the new capital "will help us expand our world-class team and quickly bring this technology to San Francisco and to more communities".
