In a sense, the controversial self-driving robotaxi firm Cruise is back on the road.  But they’re not on the road here in SF, their fleet is now much tinier, and there are human drivers supervising things again.

It was a stunning and quick fall from grace for the self-driving robotaxi firm Cruise, from last September when their CEO was demanding that San Francisco “roll out the red carpet” for their allegedly super-safe autonomous vehicles, to two weeks later when one of those vehicles dragged a pedestrian 20 feet and left her hospitalized for months. The fallout from that incident led to the California DMV suspending Cruise’s permits, and Cruise pulling all their cars off the road nationwide.

A California Public Utilities Commission investigation alleged that Cruise withheld evidence in reporting that incident, while the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a probe into the robocars’ behavior around pedestrians. Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt resigned or was pushed out in November, and the General Motors-owned Cruise laid off nearly a thousand employees as the company went into a tailspin and eventual hiatus.

Well, Cruise is now back, but not in San Francisco, and with not much of a fleet. Houston Public Media reported last month that Cruise was relaunching its operations in Houston, albeit without taking fare rides, and with human drivers supervising the vehicles. And the New York Times reported today that Cruise was operating in Dallas and Phoenix too, but again, only in test mode with human supervisors in the car.

The Times got this information from a GM quarterly earnings call Tuesday morning. Per the Times, Cruise said it was “operating a much smaller fleet of cars than it was previously and that the vehicles will not carry paying passengers for now, though the company hopes to open the service to customers later.”

As noted, this was a General Motors quarterly earnings call. Earnings were very strong for GM, which showed profits of $2.9 billion, up from $2.6 billion the same quarter last year. Overall revenue was $48 billion for the quarter, also up robustly from $44.7 billion during the same span last year.

But as for the self-driving subsidiary Cruise? They recorded a $500 million loss for the quarter, though that’s not as bad as the $600 million they lost in the same quarter last year.

Related: Woman Dragged By Cruise Robotaxi Gets Over $8 Million Settlement [SFist]

Image: Cruise