GM’s Cruise Autonomous Vehicles under Investigation after Crashes

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened an investigation into 242 Chevy Bolt–based robotaxis operated by the General Motors subsidiary Cruise in San Francisco.The investigation follows three crashes where the Cruise vehicles braked abruptly as a car approached quickly behind, causing the approaching vehicle to rear-end the Cruise cars.Cruise said it will fully cooperate with NHTSA. The company is looking to expand operations in 2023 as it readies its podlike Origin autonomous vehicle.

Cruise, the autonomous-driving subsidiary of General Motors, has been testing its robotaxi service in San Francisco since summer 2021. That entity is now under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The safety organization is looking into a series of crashes in which Cruise’s Chevy Bolt–based prototypes were rear-ended after the electric cars performed a heavy braking maneuver.

NHTSA says it has received three reports of the Cruise vehicles “initiating a hard braking maneuver in response to another road user that was quickly approaching from the rear.” Each time, the result was the car behind hitting the rear of the Cruise vehicles. Two injuries were reported in the three collisions.

The upcoming Cruise Origin.

Cruise

The organization says that the Cruise vehicles “may engage in inappropriately hard braking or become immobilized,” leading the modified Bolt EVs to become “unexpected roadway obstacles.” NHTSA will now begin an evaluation of 242 Cruise vehicles, investigating the logic used by the cars’ computer systems when they performed the hard braking action. Depending on the results, this could lead to a recall of the autonomous vehicles.

Stranded Riders

NHTSA also says it has reports of Cruise vehicles “becoming immobilized,” which “may strand vehicle passengers in unsafe locations.” This is not the first time Cruise has faced scrutiny—a crash in June that left two people injured prompted a recall of 80 vehicles to update the self-driving software.

Cruise responded by pointing out that, after “nearly 700,000 fully autonomous miles in an extremely complex urban environment,” there have been “zero life-threatening injuries or fatalities” but said it will “fully cooperate with NHTSA or any regulator,” as reported by Reuters. The company also noted that the police did not issue tickets to any of its vehicles in the three crashes.

Despite the investigation, Cruise is charging ahead with its ambitious goals, planning to expand into new markets and introduce thousands of autonomous vehicles in 2023. The company announced last Thursday that it had received the first of two permits needed from California that will allow it to charge riders for trips across all of San Francisco in its self-driving cars. The company also petitioned NHTSA in February 2022 for permission to use autonomous vehicles that do not have steering wheels, mirrors, or other physical controls as it develops the pod-like Origin first revealed in 2020.

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