The NTSB announcement came a day after the safety board announced it’s probing a second fatal crash near Philadelphia where Ford’s driver-assistance system may have been active. By August, California had given Cruise permission to run around 300 robotaxis throughout San Francisco. And the company had started testing in several more cities across the country, including Dallas, Miami, Nashville and Charlotte. "We're on a trajectory that most businesses dream of, which is exponential growth," Vogt said during a July call with investors.
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"We need actual people behind the wheel with a pulse and a brain that know how to maneuver in sticky situations," San Francisco Supervisor Shamann Walton said at Tuesday rally protesting the driverless cars. "These Cruise vehicles are dangerous on our streets. When they see tragedy or see danger or there's an obstacle in their way, all they know how to do is freeze." Even so, Cruise isn’t the first company to build and test a self-driving car without traditional controls. In December 2016, Google stunned the world when it revealed that it had put a blind man in one of its egg-shaped autonomous test vehicles and sent him out for a short ride around Austin, Texas. Google’s Firefly vehicle, audaciously designed by YooJung Ahn, is widely considered to be the first car tested publicly without a steering wheel or pedals.
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Last week, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into Cruise citing pedestrian safety concerns. San Francisco's police and fire departments have also said the cars aren't yet ready for public roads. They've tallied more than 55 incidents where self-driving cars have gotten in the way of rescue operations.
Driver in fatal Texas crash was using Ford’s auto driving system, officials say - The Guardian
Driver in fatal Texas crash was using Ford’s auto driving system, officials say.
Posted: Thu, 11 Apr 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]
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Its official name is “Origin,” and Kyle Vogt, the co-founder and chief technology officer of Cruise, is clearly excited to be showing it off. With a broad smile, he reaches out and touches a button on the side, causing the doors to slide open with a little whoosh like something out of Star Wars.
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"When there is an unreasonable risk to public safety, the DMV can immediately suspend or revoke permits," the DMV wrote in a statement. The push for not-car-ness is evident in Cruise’s intense marketing campaign leading up to the unveiling of the Origin. Not-car inventions that seriously changed how we travel, in other words. I don’t typically hear AV companies talk about “unit economics” and profitability. But that’s going to creep up sooner than a lot of people realize, Vogt says.
The first step is identifying high fidelity location data for road features and map information like speed limits, stop signs, traffic lights, lane paint, right turn only lanes and more. Having current and accurate information will help an autonomous vehicle understand where it is and the location of certain road features. We also measure our perception and prediction systems against our elevated performance criteria, using trained safety drivers as a benchmark. At this stage, no autonomous systems are engaged and the vehicles will not carry public passengers. Koopman says the safety narrative can unravel when people see the driverless cars on city streets making the same mistakes as human drivers.
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Looking to the next chapter, our goal is to resume driverless operations. As we continue working to rebuild trust and determine the city where we will scale driverless, we also remain focused on continuing to improve our performance and overall safety approach. To that end, Cruise is resuming manual driving to create maps and gather road information in select cities, starting in Phoenix. This work is done using human-driven vehicles without autonomous systems engaged, and is a critical step for validating our self-driving systems as we work towards returning to our driverless mission.
Carpooling in the age of smartphones hasn’t exactly been the runaway success that ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft have hoped. But Cruise thinks its abundance of space can help minimize the friction. Cruise has been working on the design of the Origin for over three years, but Honda’s involvement “super charged” the effort. The two automakers didn’t collaborate on every tiny detail; instead, they split up the work based on their expertise. GM was responsible for the base vehicle design and the electric powertrain, while Honda helped create the interior’s “efficient use of space,” Vogt says.
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Even before the October incident, tension over self-driving cars was simmering in San Francisco. It's affordable for sellers, simple for shoppers, and sustainable for our planet. Every Cruise car is all-electric, zero-emission, and powered by 100% renewable energy. Learn how our data visualization tool shaped the future of autonomous driving. Cruise Car® ranks among the largest suppliers of commercial grade electric low speed utility vehicles. Thousands of Cruise Cars are in use at federal government properties, military bases worldwide, municipalities, universities and resorts nationwide and in over 40 countries.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also opened an investigation into Cruise. California has ordered the company Cruise to immediately stop operations of its driverless cars in the state. The Department of Motor Vehicles said on Tuesday that it was issuing the indefinite suspension because of safety issues with the vehicles. During this phase, the Cruise vehicles will drive themselves and a safety driver is present behind the wheel to monitor and take over if needed. Meanwhile, Waymo officially launched paid rides in Los Angeles this week.
Lyft and Uber said they will pause on their planned exit from Minneapolis after city officials decided to delay the start of a driver pay raise by a couple of months. Tesla dropped the monthly subscription price of its “Supervised FSD” (formerly known as “FSD Beta”) to $99, down from $199, in a bid to get more dollars and data from drivers. Basemark, a Finnish company that developed AR and computer vision software used by automakers, raised €22 million ($23.6 million) in a Series B round led by ETF Partners. Other backers include Finnish Industry Investment, Constructor Capital, Business Finland, the European Innovation Council and private investors. "They were the bull in a china shop. They just kept charging ahead," says Missy Cummings, a George Mason University professor who runs the Mason Autonomy and Robotics Center. "When we sat around and discussed who was going to have the worst accident in that crowd, everyone knew it was going to be Cruise."
National contracts include GSA and the Sourcewell Buying Cooperative. Our goal is to earn trust and build partnerships with the communities such that, ultimately, we resume fully driverless operations in collaboration with a city. Over the past several weeks we have communicated directly with officials, first responders, and community leaders in cities we’ve previously operated in to share updates on our path forward. We are committed to safely deploying our technology in close collaboration with officials and communities at every step. Cruise has a strong history in Phoenix and it is home to a large number of Cruise employees.
Majority owned by General Motors since 2016, Cruise combines a culture of innovative technology and safety with a history of manufacturing and automotive excellence. Cruise has received funding from other leading companies and investors—including Honda, Microsoft, T. Rowe Price, and Walmart. We’re working to bring new transportation options that work for you and your community. We believe driverless technology has the potential to save lives, enhance access and improve communities. Exoes, a French-based startup that developed battery cooling technology for EVs, raised €35 million ($37.5 million) from BpiFrance and Meridiam Green Impact Growth Fund. Waymo has avoided much of the public ire that built up over the summer.
We previously reported on California regulators’ approval of the Alphabet-owned company to charge for its robotaxi service in the city. The service is starting out small and will build based on demand and performance metrics, a Waymo spokesperson told TechCrunch. Cruise and Waymo also ran into problems with San Francisco's police and fire departments. At government hearings, the agencies testified that the driverless cars were a nuisance.
HysetCo SAS, a startup that rents hydrogen-powered EVs to taxi drivers in Paris, raised nearly €200 million ($218 million) in a round led by Hy24. "Our folks cannot be paying attention to an autonomous vehicle when we've got ladders to throw," San Francisco Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson said in an August hearing. "When you start having passive aggressive protests like people putting orange cones on your cars, this isn't going to come out your way," says Cummings.
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