Business & Tech Beleaguered Self-Driving Car Company Cruise Teams Up With Uber for Their Comeback Bid Robotaxi company Cruise currently has its California permits suspended, but they are definitely plotting their comeback, and just announced they’re partnering to offer self-driving Cruise rides on the Uber app.
Business & Tech GM’s Cruise Robotaxis Very Softly Relaunch, But Not In SF, and With Human Drivers Again 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.
Business & Tech Cruise Fined $112,500 by CPUC Over Pedestrian-Dragging Incident, But Avoids Independent Investigation Cruise was fined the maximum allowable fine of $112,500 for burying evidence in the incident where their car dragged a pedestrian 20 feet. But the self-driving car company got off easy, as state regulators rejected calls for an independent investigation into what actually happened.
Business & Tech Report: Many SF School Crossing Guards Say Self-Driving Cars Have Nearly Hit Them or Children A new investigative report shows that one in four San Francisco school crossing guards have had a “close call” with a self-driving vehicle, though many of the other guards say that the autonomous cars drive better than people do.
SF News Woman Dragged By Cruise Robotaxi Gets Over $8 Million Settlement A woman who was struck and dragged about 20 feet by an autonomous Cruise vehicle last year has reportedly been awarded a settlement of $8 million to $12 million from parent company General Motors.
Business & Tech Ex-Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt Starts New ‘Bot Company,’ Gets Handed $150 Million Despite Having No Products Proving again that tech executives can always fail upwards, the CEO that ran self-driving car company Cruise into a ditch, Kyle Vogt, has just been handed $150 million for his new venture called the Bot Company that claims it will eventually develop robots to do household chores.
Business & Tech Has the Self-Driving Car Bubble Burst? Some Analysts Say So, As Apple Exits the Autonomous Vehicle Race When the $70 billion tech giant Apple abandons an idea, it may be an idea simply not worth pursuing, which could be the state of the suddenly struggling autonomous vehicle industry.
Bay Area Sports The Giants Are Dumping That GM Cruise Patch on Their Uniforms That Fans Hated Here’s one reason to get excited for Giants baseball after the free agency flops in the offseason — the team won’t be wearing that cursed Cruise patch on their uniforms this year.
Business & Tech Feds, DMV Investigating More SF Cruise Robotaxi Incidents Than We Realized, Two Cars Allegedly Almost Hit Kids The self-driving robotaxi company Cruise may have had a worse track record of highly dangerous near-misses than previously reported, and faces five state and federal probes into incidents like almost running over children.
SF News Cruise Offers Mea Culpa In Form of Third-Party Report on October 2 Robotaxi Disaster Self-driving taxi company Cruise, owned by General Motors, has released a report by a third-party law firm which they say will "help both Cruise and the industry learn from the incident, strengthen protocols, and improve technology."
Business & Tech Cruise Is Offering $75K to Settle CPUC Investigation Into Crash In Which Woman Was Dragged General Motors-owned robotaxi outfit Cruise is offering $75,000 to "resolve" an investigation by California regulators into a gruesome October 2 crash incident involving one of its vehicles, which set off a cascade of negative impacts on the company's operations.
Business & Tech GM Sues San Francisco Over Cruise Tax Bill, Which It Says Is Unfair General Motors, the parent company of autonomous taxi outfit Cruise, has filed suit against the City of San Francisco over a $108 million tax bill that it says was incorrectly charged. And this may be some sort of revenge for the city and state's treatment of the company.
SF News Protesters Outside Public Utilities Commission Call for Ouster of Commissioner Who Worked for Cruise A rally outside the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) offices in San Francisco Thursday morning was calling for the prosecution of executives at self-driving taxi company Cruise, and for the ouster of the commissioner who helped approve Cruise's permits.
SF News State Commission Alleges That Cruise Withheld Evidence, Misled Public in Pedestrian-Dragging Incident The California Public Utilities Commission is hauling self-driving taxi company Cruise to court for allegedly “failing to provide complete information” by leaving out the rather significant detail that their car dragged a pedestrian 20 feet in an October 2 collision.
SF News Monday Morning Headlines: CEO of Cruise Resigns After Robotaxi Recall Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt has resigned after that recall of the company's robotaxis; a food truck worker in Oakland was shot after being robbed; and Thanksgiving week is expected to be extra busy at SFO.
SF News Cruise Recalling Self-Driving Robotaxis Nationwide, Amidst Report Vehicles Had Safety Issues Around Children While the recall appears temporary, Cruise is pulling all of its 950 self-driving robotaxis from the streets, and a separate report shows Cruise internal communications acknowledged safety issues around children and holes in roads.
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.
SF News Day Around the Bay: Report Says Cruise ‘Withheld’ Accident Footage, Leading to Company's SF Suspension The Giants will hire Bob Melvin as their new manager, Oakland’s First Fridays is going on a temporary hiatus, and a bombshell report alleges that self-driving car company Cruise got their operations suspended in SF because they withheld accident video from state regulators.
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 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 Pedestrian Who Died In August Incident That Paramedics Blamed on Cruise Vehicles Was Struck By Muni Bus We are now learning more about an incident reported on last month by the San Francisco Fire Department in which an ambulance carrying a person who was severely injured on a SoMa street was allegedly briefly prevented from leaving the scene due to two Cruise robotaxis in the way.
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.
