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.
SF News Uber and Lyft Drivers Detail Five Most Common Screw-Ups Made by Self-Driving Cars There’s no love lost between human rideshare drivers and the self-driving car companies that hope to replace them, but the rideshare drivers are quick to point out that the robotaxis are nowhere near up to the task yet.
SF News Friday Morning Constitutional: Another Cruise Vehicle Involved In Crash A Cruise AV was involved in a crash with a construction vehicle on Gough; there was a 3.9M earthquake this morning in Sonoma; and the updated COVID booster is coming available in mid-September.
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 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.
SF News Cruise Cars Get Into Robo-Traffic Jam In North Beach Friday, Caused By Outside Lands-Related 'Connectivity Issues' Just one day after autonomous car expansion was approved in SF, a bunch of Cruise self-driving cars snarled traffic in North Beach Friday night — and it's all on video.
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 Renegade Group Disabling Self-Driving Cars With Orange Cones Speaks Out A local TV station spent a night with the monkey-wrench gang that’s been stopping self-driving cars with mere orange cones, and yes, it seems this incredibly simple hack does indeed work.
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.
Business & Tech Pranksters Claim They Can Stop Self-Driving Cars With Orange Cones, Waymo and Cruise Not Amused A viral video this week made the curious claim that self-driving robotaxis on SF streets can be brought to a halt with the placement of an orange cone on the vehicle’s hood. Cruise and Waymo have both responded that the jokers doing this need to knock it off.
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.
