SF News Cruise Suspends All Driverless Operations In Multiple Cities Following CA DMV Suspension GM-owned Cruise is hitting the pause button on all of its driverless taxi operations in order to "rebuild public trust," the company says, a move that comes two days after the California DMV ordered the company to cease operating its vehicles in San Francisco without a driver present.
Business & Tech California DMV Suspends Cruise Robotaxis From Operating In SF, Indefinitely One of the two companies operating driverless taxis in San Francisco will no longer be able to do so, after the DMV has suspended their permit allowing them to take passengers without a test driver present.
Business & Tech Feds Now Investigating Cruise Self-Driving Robotaxis Over Their Behavior Around Pedestrians The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened a probe into an unknown number of incidents where Cruise robotaxis allegedly encroached on pedestrians, in the wake of one SF Cruise car running over a hit-and-run victim.
Business & Tech Cruise Announces Software Updates to Its AVs In Response to Emergency Situations After a number of concerning incidents involving its autonomous vehicles getting in the way of fire engines and ambulances, Cruise announced a set of software improvements Thursday aimed at "minimizing operational impact" for emergency responders.
Business & Tech Driver Strikes Pedestrian Near Fifth and Market; Cruise Car Subsequently Runs Her Over and Stops On Top Of Her A pedestrian collision Monday night is likely to provide more fodder for the debate over autonomous vehicles and how they react to certain uncommon situations — and it has Cruise once again in aggressive defense mode.
Business & Tech Cruise CEO Says SF ‘Should Be Rolling Out the Red Carpet’ for Robotaxis in TechCrunch Disrupt Interview In his first major public interview since the DMV cut their San Francisco fleet in half, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt said “we cannot expect perfection” from the self-driving cars, and acknowledged a possibility they could leave town if regulators curtail them any further.
SF News In Escalation of AV Backlash, Black-Clad Person Seen Vandalizing Cruise Vehicle With Hammer As has become clear, autonomous vehicles are not going to be allowed to proliferate on San Francisco's streets without some kind of protest. And the latest act of protest took things to a newly aggressive level.
SF News Cruise Rejects Blame From SFFD's Claim It Blocked First Responders in Pedestrian Fatality Incident The autonomous vehicle company says that its driverless cars didn't block an ambulance's response to an emergency incident, which contributed to a person's death, and that it's cooperating with authorities.
SF News SF Fire Department Now Says Two Cruise Cars Blocked First Responders at Scene of Crash, Contributing to Victim's Death An incident report made by the fire department on August 14 suggests that an ambulance was briefly prevented from transporting a patient who was bleeding out following a collision in SoMa.
SF News Day Around the Bay: NYT Reporters Try Out Waymo's Robotaxi Service Three NYT reporters took Waymo's paid robotaxi service for a spin; the death last month of a 63-year-old Bayview woman has been deemed accidental; and Los Gatos 'party mom' Shannon O'Connor missed a court appearance today.
SF News California DMV Steps Into Autonomous Taxi Debate, Tells Cruise to Halve Its Fleet In SF After a series of concerning incidents involving Cruise autonomous vehicles, the California Department of Motor Vehicles issued an order late Friday asking Cruise to reduce its fleet of AVs in San Francisco.
SF News Driverless Bus Shuttle Now Being Tested on Treasure Island A fairly cute, compact, autonomous bus is now taking passengers around a loop on Treasure Island, as part of a pilot program exploring how autonomous vehicles (AVs) can supplement public transportation.
SF News Cruise Vehicle Involved In Collision With SF Fire Truck; Separate Collision With Cruise Vehicle Occurs In Mission It was a rough night for the robotaxis Thursday, with two self-driving Cruise vehicles getting into car crashes — one striking, or getting struck by, a fire truck that was responding to a call, and one passenger was hospitalized with a head injury.
SF News SF City Attorney Files Motion to Halt Roll-Out of More Self-Driving Cruise and Waymo Robotaxis City Attorney David Chiu is ramping up the pushback against Waymo and Cruise self-driving robotaxis in SF, filing a motion with the state to reverse their approval of unlimited robotaxis on San Francisco streets.
SF Politics Friday’s North Beach Self-Driving Car Clusterf*** Has SF Officials Begging the State to Walk Back Approval Barely 24 hours after getting state approval to run their self-driving cars at all hours in SF, Cruise robotaxis froze up en masse in North Beach Friday night. Now SF City Hall is urging a state commission to go into reverse on that approval.
Business & Tech State Commission Votes to Approve Autonomous Taxi Expansion In San Francisco In Historic Vote The California Public Utilities Commission voted 3-1 on Thursday night, after over seven hours of public comment, to approve the expansion of robotaxi service in San Francisco to 24 hours — and approved both Cruise and Waymo to take paid fares at all hours.
Business & Tech Over 200 Members of the Public Set to Give Comment at PUC Hearing on Robotaxis The hearing on expanding autonomous-vehicle taxi service in San Francisco has gotten underway at the California Public Utilities Commission — and a long line of attendees and possible speakers during the public-comment portion was visible at Van Ness and McAllister on Thursday morning.
Business & Tech One Autonomous Vehicle Appeared to Chase a Fire Truck; Another Blocked a Fire Truck From Getting Out of Its Station On the eve of a key vote by a state commission on whether to allow Cruise and Waymo to further expand their autonomous vehicle testing and begin taking paid passengers all over SF, we're getting to see some of the 55 incident reports filed by the SF Fire Department involving AVs.
SF News Cops, Firefighters, and of Course Taxi Drivers Tee Off on Self-Driving Robotaxis Before Key Regulatory Vote Firefighters complain “it is not our job to babysit their vehicles” as Cruise and Waymo road glitches are on the uptick ahead of Thursday’s CPUC vote on whether to allow more robotaxis in SF. Oh, and Willie Brown is now a lobbyist for Cruise.
Business & Tech SF Says Driverless Car Problems ‘Skyrocketing,’ Techies Fume at Our Lack of Enthusiasm for the Glitches The SFMTA says that dangerous incidents with self-driving robotaxis have increased exponentially in recent months, while Cruise, Waymo, and their associated venture capitalist types excoriate SF for not adequately loving the buggy self-driving cars.
SF News Another Waymo Decided to Park In the Middle of an Intersection, Blocking Muni Bus You've heard a lot of these stories by now, but we have yet another situation in which a robocar disrupted civil society in San Francisco and caused actual humans to have trouble getting where they need to go.
SF News SF Fire Chief Fumes Over Self-Driving Robotaxis Blocking First Responders Dozens of Times This Year San Francisco Fire Department Chief Jeanine Nicholson notes there have been 39 incidents of Cruise and Waymo robotaxis blocking first responders this year alone, and says the robot cars are “not ready for prime time.”
Business & Tech GM Recalled 300 Cruise Robocars Following Crash Into Muni Bus An incident in which a Cruise robotaxi made a booboo and "tapped" the back of a Muni bus in the Haight last month has prompted General Motors to do a "recall" — which in the days of internet-connected vehicles just amounted to a software update.
Business & Tech San Francisco Could Soon Become a Free-for-All of Self-Driving Taxis You may already think there are too many self-driving robocars on the streets of SF, roaming creepily around with names like "Mocha" and "Juice." But the cars are actually pretty restricted in what they can do and where they can go right now. That may soon change.
Business & Tech Self-Driving Waymo Drives Self Into Construction Site, Doesn’t Know What To Do The latest San Francisco driverless car mishap involves an autonomous Waymo vehicle driving upon a construction site, stopping in front of a trench in the ground, then having no idea what to do as construction workers have a good laugh at the robot car’s confused state.
