A small fleet of Cruise robotaxis in San Francisco all of a sudden stopped working on Tuesday night time, successfully stopping visitors on a road within the metropolis’s Fillmore district for a few hours till staff had been in a position to arrive. TechCrunch first noticed a Reddit post that featured a photograph of the stalled driverless cabs on the nook of Gough and Fulton streets. Cruise — which is General Motor’s AV subsidiary — solely launched its industrial robotaxi service within the metropolis final week. The rides characteristic no human security driver, are geo-restricted to sure streets and might solely function within the late night hours.
Cruise apologized for the incident in an announcement, however gave little rationalization for what precipitated the mishap. “We had an issue earlier this week that caused some of our vehicles to cluster together,” a Cruise spokesperson stated in a statement to TechCrunch. “While it was resolved and no passengers were impacted, we apologize to anyone who was inconvenienced.”
The GM-backed AV startup received the primary driverless taxi allow in a significant US metropolis, and started providing San Francisco residents free rides in February. After launching its paid passenger service on June 24, early critiques from Cruise passengers got here pouring in. One passenger famous that his Cruise automotive took an unusually long route to get to his residence. Another passenger appeared to have a extra constructive expertise, even leaving a money tip for the driverless automotive.
I received to trip in a @Cruise automotive (named Falafel) as an early paying buyer this week! Falafel was a wonderful driver and the entire trip felt secure and clean. I couldn’t discover an choice to tip Falafel so I simply left some cash within the cup holder – hope that’s okay. pic.twitter.com/OYnyTyleYl
— Rob Zimmerman (@robmzimmerman) June 26, 2022
This week’s visitors jam seems to be Cruise’s first main stumbling block, not less than for its industrial service. Back in April, police stopped a Cruise automotive for not having its headlights on. Officers appeared not sure of tips on how to proceed after discovering there was no human behind the wheel.
The State of California requires AV corporations to report any collision that contain property harm, bodily hurt or demise to the DMV, which publishes the information on-line. A complete of 18 reports involving Cruise automobiles have been filed this yr.
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