People travel with a Cruise driverless robot taxi in San Francisco in July 2023. Photo: Tayfun Coskun/Getty Images
General Motors recalled 950 Cruise driverless vehicles on Wednesday as they've come under scrutiny for crash response and prevention.
Why it matters: The recall comes after the fully autonomous vehicles were banned in San Francisco in October following a pedestrian crash.
- The company said it will update collision response software as a result of the crash.
- GM will also address situations where the cars inappropriately pull over out of traffic during post-collision responses, rather than remaining stationary.
Context: On Oct. 2, a person was gravely injured in San Francisco after being dragged underneath a Cruise car, according to a report filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
- Video footage previously viewed by Axios showed the pedestrian in the crosswalk being struck by a human-driven car, then bouncing off that car's windshield into the path of the robotaxi.
- In a statement at the time, Cruise said its robotaxi "braked aggressively to minimize the impact" but was unable to stop before rolling over the woman and coming to a halt.
Threat level: A collision with risk of serious injury from the collision detection system could occur every 10 million to 100 million miles of driving, per Cruise.
- Prediction is the most challenging component of an autonomous vehicle, which lacks human instincts.
The big picture: General Motors largely funded electric vehicles and autonomy, both of which have now had issues.
- The company abandoned its target of producing 400,000 EVs because of slowing demand, manufacturing bottlenecks and profit concerns.
- The company said on Wednesday that it is hiring a chief safety officer, who will report directly to the CEO.
- An engineering firm will also be conducting a technical root cause analysis of the early October pedestrian crash.
Go deeper: Driverless cars may need to drive more like humans