Autonomous vehicle company Cruise is back on Bay Area roads.
Cruise on Thursday deployed a small fleet of vehicles with drivers to map two South Bay Cities, the first in a series of steps to get its permits back from the state. The move comes nearly a year since the company’s driverless fleet was pulled by regulators after it was accused of trying to mislead them about their safety record.
Now, Cruise said there are anywhere between one to five of its vehicles zipping around Sunnyvale and Mountain View.
Last October, Cruise faced allegations it tried to hide crucial details from regulators about one of its driverless cars dragging a woman 20 feet, not realizing she was trapped underneath. Cruise has been working with state regulators since.
“While the purpose of this small-scale presence is specifically to allow employees to engage with our product for research and development purposes, we look forward to taking this step as we continue our conversations with California regulators and stakeholders,” the company said in a statement.
The company points out mapping vehicles are manually driven and have no autonomous capabilities. It says “drivered testing,” or testing with a person behind the wheel to supervise, starts in the fall.
Even then, you won’t be able to hail a ride from Cruise until state regulators give the greenlight. A spokesperson for the California Public Utilities Commission, or CPUC, said “These operations do not carry public passengers. Cruise’s DMV driverless testing and deployment permits (and the CPUC’s correlating permits) remain suspended.”
Leadership in the two South Bay cities welcome Cruise's announcement.
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Jennifer Garnett, a spokesperson for the City of Sunnyvale, said the company reached out to them.
“We look forward to partnering with them to ensure their activities are done safely and in compliance with relevant local requirements,” Garnett said.
Mountain View Mayor Pat Showalter said “We look forward to having Cruise as part of our community as they safely launch supervised testing of their AVs this fall.”
The announcement was met with mixed reaction from people in downtown Mountain View on Thursday.
Alex Borillo said she would rather have the company use these mapping vehicles in San Francisco.
“You’re driving in a more peaceful area, I don’t know, how you can really get an accurate gauge,” Borillo said.
Heather Audyski said she can see it two ways.
“At least a driverless car is better than driving drunk, but then also a driverless car can hit someone,” she said.
Andrew Rolen said “I’ve heard some pretty scary stories so safety is No. 1, so if there’s any question about safety then I’m not exactly in favor of it.”
There is still no timeline for if or when driverless Cruise vehicles could hit the streets again.
