Cruise Self-Driving Taxis Return to the Bay Area

Self-driving taxi company Cruise is returning to the Bay Area in California almost a year after the crash that caused it to suspend operations and left a pedestrian seriously injured.

The General Motors subsidiary confirmed the news with a short post on social media.

It read: “Starting today we will deploy several manual mapping vehicles in Sunnyvale and Mountain View with the intent to progress to supervised testing with up to 5 AVs later this fall. Resuming testing in the Bay Area is an important step forward as we continue to work closely with California regulators and local stakeholders. 

“This will allow our local employees to engage directly with our product as they refine and improve our tech through R&D.”

The move has been made possible following Cruise’s settlement with the California Public Utilities Commission in June, which saw it pay a $112,500 fine for its failure to provide full information about the incident in its immediate aftermath.

For more self-driving vehicle and other embedded tech news subscribe to our free newsletter!

The Oct. 2 accident in San Francisco saw a pedestrian dragged along the road for 20 feet by one of the company’s driverless Chevrolet Bolt taxis after originally being struck by a human-driven vehicle.

Related:Cruise Self-Driving Taxi Operations Suspended in California

While it had devastating consequences for the individual involved, it also turned the fortunes of Cruise upside down.

Its licenses to operate in California were suspended by the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles, which cited an “unreasonable risk to public safety” before the company voluntarily paused all operations nationally, and embarked on a major restructuring that saw then-CEO Kyle Vogt depart alongside a number of other key executives as well as hundreds of staff.

An independent report commissioned by Cruise to investigate its response to the accident was damning in its criticism, claiming: “The reasons for Cruise’s failings in this instance are numerous: poor leadership, mistakes in judgment, lack of coordination, an ‘us versus them’ mentality with regulators and a fundamental misapprehension of Cruise’s obligations of accountability and transparency to the government and the public.”

However, after several months of inactivity, earlier this year the company started to take its first tentative steps back onto the roads with a very transparent focus on safety, following a slew of negative headlines.

In April, its self-driving Chevrolet Bolts returned to the streets of Phoenix in limited numbers with human drivers at the wheel, before autonomous operations resumed in May.

Related:Woman Trapped Under Self-Driving Taxi After Freak Accident

Since then Cruise has also restarted testing in Dallas and Houston, as well as attracted a further $850 million in investment from GM, underscoring the automaker’s commitment to the company following widespread speculation about its future in the months following the accident.

Its public rehabilitation was further assisted by a recent deal to provide vehicles to Uber in 2025.

However, following the avalanche of adverse publicity the company endured, its return to California, particularly the area around San Francisco – where its AVs were always a polarizing presence – is likely to be especially closely scrutinized.