Back to the drawing board?
General Motors has hundreds of self-driving taxis in its home country of the United States, but that is coming to an end for the time being. After an accident with one of those cars, GM had problems with local authorities and that is why it is now ceasing operations for the time being.
General Motors will no longer send self-driving taxis onto the streets for the time being. GM’s autonomous driving division GM Cruise had four hundred self-driving taxis operating in San Francisco (California) and another two hundred in Austin, Houston (Texas) and Phoenix (Arizona). This week, the license for autonomous taxis in California was suspended. The Department of Motor Vehicles in California revoked the permit because GM allegedly withheld video footage of an accident in which a pedestrian was struck in San Francisco. One of the cars in San Francisco braked too late for a pedestrian and then drove for twenty feet while the victim was still underneath the car. The federal regulator National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is also investigating the accident.
The decision is a major setback for GM Cruise, which was about to expand its experiment with self-driving taxis to other American cities and, in collaboration with Honda, also to Japan. GM Cruise says restoring public confidence is now its top priority. That is why all self-driving taxis have been taken off the streets. GM Cruise is currently still driving around with transformed Chevrolet Bolts, the intention is that the Cruise Origin, specially designed for autonomous transport, will eventually take over. For the time being, GM Cruise is in danger of becoming a headache for GM. The company spent €1.3 billion on self-driving cars this year alone. GM CEO Mary Barra reiterated that the company continues to believe in the technology.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl