Self-driving cars glitch and fill street just weeks after robot vehicle crashes leaving two hurt
A CRASH involving a Cruise robotaxi has occurred in San Francisco just weeks since the last incident involving the self-driving car service.
Cruise launched its fully electric, fully autonomous taxi service in the Bay Area earlier this year and the rollout has been rocky.
An accident and tech malfunctions involving Cruise vehicles have hospitalized riders and blocked traffic for hours.
On June 3, Cruise self-driving taxi was slowing to a stop and preparing to make a left turn when it collided with a Toyota Prius traveling 40mph in a 25mph zone, InsideEVs reports.
A collision report filed by Cruise VP of Global Markets Todd Brugger says the riders from both vehicles were treated for injuries.
The police are still investigating the accident and have not assigned blame to either party yet.
The accident was followed by a glitch that caused Cruise vehicles to group together and freeze, blocking roads until they could be towed away.
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A whistleblower claiming to be a long-time Cruise employee wrote an anonymous letter to the California Public Utilities Commission saying the vehicles were not ready for commercial use.
The whistleblower's letter noted a stalled, uninterested internal safety board and flagged the technical error that later led to blocked roads.
“My subjective opinion from experiencing this and speaking with others at the company is that employees generally do not believe we are ready to launch to the public,” the letter wrote.
The California Public Utilities Commission gave Cruise the green light to operate and collect fees for rides weeks after receiving the whistleblower's letter.
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A majority of the Cruise business is owned by legacy car brand General Motors.
The Cruise company culture has come under a microscope amid the recent removal of Cruise's CEO and the high-profile crashes in San Francisco.
A Cruise employee wrote on the anonymous message board Blind "Politics and back stabbing are part and parcel of survival here."
Cruise beat the Tesla robotaxi to market and their vehicles have traveled almost a million miles collectively, SlashGear reports.
Cruise spokesperson Drew Pusateri told The US Sun "Our safety record is tracked, reported, and published by multiple government agencies. We’re proud of it and it speaks for itself,” in a statement.
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Autonomous driving is one of the dynamic developments that's optimistically expected to be "solved" within the next 20 years.
The transitional stage of humans and robots sharing the road is proving to be a tense one as the first driverless taxis stumble out of the gate.