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US Cruise company must stop operating driverless robot taxis in San Francisco until further notice. The California State Transportation Authority suspended the relevant permit for a subsidiary of US auto company General Motors (GM) on October 24. Reason: The operation of the driverless taxi fleet is “not safe enough”. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the highest traffic authority in the USA, previously announced that it would investigate two accidents involving autonomous vehicles. This was reported by the German magazine Spiegel.
The deciding factor was an accident at the beginning of October: A pedestrian was hit by a human-driven vehicle and thrown in front of a robot taxi. The taxi immediately braked but then tried to pull over to the side of the road. The pedestrian was dragged 6 meters under the vehicle at a speed of 11 kilometers per hour and was rescued by rescue teams.
Autonomous taxis that make money
GM subsidiary Cruise has been operating a fleet of autonomous vehicles in San Francisco as a pilot project since 2015. For this purpose, suitably converted copies of the long-discontinued Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicle, sold in small numbers in Switzerland as the Opel Ampera-e from 2017, are used. The most visible changes to vehicles for autonomous operation are the lidar laser sensors on the roof.
Initially, the test vehicles had people behind the wheel who could respond to an emergency. After good experiences these can be saved from October 2020. Cruise received approval for commercial taxi service with its autonomous fleet in September 2021. At the beginning of August, the green light was finally given to further expand the service.
One accident too many
But accidents became more frequent: In the same month, there was a head-on collision with a fire truck, injuring a taxi passenger. On the same day, a taxi driving at traffic lights hit a pedestrian while traveling at low speed. Cruise was then forced to halve its fleet and was only allowed to operate with 50 vehicles during the day and a maximum of 150 at night.
Recently, the San Francisco city government has also come out against taxi service: Vehicles will ignore blue lights of emergency vehicles, drive through barrier tapes, and desperately block traffic if the cell phone network goes down. The last accident at the beginning of October ended the project for now.
Thousands of vehicles have been ordered
Under CEO Mary Barra, General Motors has transformed from a lumbering automaker into a nimble mobility provider in recent years. But the temporary end is likely to have far-reaching consequences for daughter Cruise. The company is currently working on making a box-shaped shuttle ready for mass production. The launch of autonomous shuttle service in Tokyo, Japan’s capital, is planned for 2026; The Arab metropolis of Dubai has already ordered 4,000 robot cars in 2021. Following recent events, it is unclear whether Cruise will be able to carry out orders as planned. Another pain for GM: Rival Waymo, a subsidiary of tech giant Google, is allowed to continue operating a commercial taxi service with robot cars in San Francisco.
Source: Blick
I’m Ella Sammie, author specializing in the Technology sector. I have been writing for 24 Instatnt News since 2020, and am passionate about staying up to date with the latest developments in this ever-changing industry.
