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Tesla Is Not the Only Company Under Scrutiny by NHTSA: Cruise Is Also Being Investigated

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has been investigating Tesla for a long time. It did not help that the company’s vehicles had three fatal crashes, with four dead, in just two days. The case is that the safety regulator now has an eye on ADAS and autonomous vehicles, as opening an investigation about Cruise clearly demonstrates.
More than five Cruise robotaxis block Gough Street in San Francisco 17 photos
Photo: seansinha/Reddit
GM’s Cruise is the first to offer self-driving service to paying customers in CaliforniaGM’s Cruise is the first to offer self-driving service to paying customers in CaliforniaGM’s Cruise is the first to offer self-driving service to paying customers in CaliforniaGM’s Cruise is the first to offer self-driving service to paying customers in CaliforniaGM’s Cruise is the first to offer self-driving service to paying customers in CaliforniaGM’s Cruise is the first to offer self-driving service to paying customers in CaliforniaGM’s Cruise is the first to offer self-driving service to paying customers in CaliforniaGM’s Cruise is the first to offer self-driving service to paying customers in CaliforniaGM’s Cruise is the first to offer self-driving service to paying customers in CaliforniaGM’s Cruise is the first to offer self-driving service to paying customers in CaliforniaGM’s Cruise is the first to offer self-driving service to paying customers in CaliforniaGM’s Cruise is the first to offer self-driving service to paying customers in CaliforniaGM’s Cruise is the first to offer self-driving service to paying customers in CaliforniaMore than five Cruise robotaxis block Gough Street in San FranciscoMore than five Cruise robotaxis block Gough Street in San FranciscoMore than five Cruise robotaxis block Gough Street in San Francisco
Cruise has been experiencing issues recently. On June 21, four of the company’s robotaxis stopped at the corner of Geary and Mason Street in San Francisco, as the Twitter user Smerity (@Smerity) showed below. On June 29, more than five Cruise vehicles stopped on Gough Street, close to Fulton Street, in the same region.

We asked Cruise what happened on June 30 and got no response. TechCrunch also reached the company and heard back that Cruise “had an issue,” which is pretty generic and evident: nobody would ask them about problems if it did not have more than five cars blocking a street.

More than five Cruise robotaxis block Gough Street in San Francisco
Photo: seansinha/Reddit
Some days later, a Reddit user called anoncruiseemployee started a thread. With the risk that it eventually vanishes from that social media, here’s the complete text, exactly as it was written apart from the bolds:

“In light of the coverage of dozens of vehicles being stuck on the roads of San Francisco on June 28 (now on Techcrunch and Hacker News) I wanted to share that I wrote about this in an email to the CPUC in mid-May, a couple weeks before their vote on allowing Cruise to charge fares within a limited area of San Francisco.

As of now, I have not received any response from the CPUC except for an auto-reply indicating that my message was received. I am not sharing the full message here because outside the original context of communicating with a regulatory agency it may violate the terms of my NDA to share some of the information in the message.

To summarize the message, it specifies the nature of ‘Vehicle Retrieval Events’ such as the ones that occurred on June 28, June 20, and multiple times before then that may result in dozens of vehicles blocking public roads until they are physically retrieved, and why I believe these events will occur frequently for the foreseeable future including when hours of operation of the driverless fleet are expanded to include morning and evening rush hour times. Aside from the obvious problems with large numbers of vehicles blocking traffic, one of the more concerning possibilities is these vehicles blocking emergency vehicles such as ambulances and fire trucks.

I subjectively find Cruise to be a highly chaotic environment where safety related discussion is routinely discouraged because it contradicts the leadership's narrative, ‘is a distraction’, and ‘lowers morale’, the second two being direct quotes I have heard spoken by management and leadership at the company.

I'm glad that this issue is getting more attention, and for the sake of the safety of San Francisco residents, I hope that Cruise and regulators such as the CPUC both take the appropriate steps to ensure public safety.

Note: I am not going to verify my employment status because I don't have a good way to do that without doxxing myself and risking being fired and possibly facing legal action. If you think I'm just a troll, I'm okay with that.”


More than five Cruise robotaxis block Gough Street in San Francisco
Photo: seansinha/Reddit
CPUC stands for California Public Utilities Commission. If you read the whole thing, you have seen this employee accuses Cruise of being “a highly chaotic environment where safety related discussion is routinely discouraged.” They accuse the company leadership of having adopted a speech that calls safety concerns “a distraction,” which is a really concerning prospect for a company that was authorized to charge fees from users on June 3 in San Francisco and started doing so on June 22 – one day after the first reported Cruise blockade.

According to Philip Koopman, “this is yet another symptom that they have removed a backup driver from their vehicles too early. They are trying to downplay it.” The autonomous vehicle safety expert and associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University also told autoevolution that “many serious loss events are preceded by a number of seemingly small warning events. At this point, we have ample warning events that Cruise should still have backup drivers in their vehicles.”

The trigger for the NHTSA investigation shows that Koopman may have hit the nail on the head. On June 3 – the same day the autonomous vehicle company got the permit to offer commercial autonomous driving ride-hailing services in San Francisco – a Cruise vehicle “was traveling eastbound on Geary Boulevard toward the intersection with Spruce Street.” Notice that everything happens around Geary Street and Geary Boulevard.

GM’s Cruise is the first to offer self\-driving service to paying customers in California
Photo: Cruise
The Cruise robotaxi had to turn left onto Spruce Street when a Toyota Prius came in the opposite direction. The report to California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) says that the hybrid vehicle “was traveling approximately 40 mph in a 25 mph speed zone” at the right turn lane. Instead of turning, the Prius continued going straight ahead.

The Cruise vehicle stopped before completing the left turn when it detected the Toyota was heading its way. The Prius eventually hit Cruise's Bolt EV on the right rear door, damaging the door and the right rear wheel of the robotaxi, which had to be towed. Occupants in both vehicles had minor injuries.

Cruise confirmed to TechCrunch that NHTSA opened the investigation about its activities and that it is collaborating with authorities. Regardless of the results, this crash shows the interaction between autonomous vehicles and real drivers is something that needs to be perfected. Having backup drivers in Cruise vehicles may be necessary to avoid new collisions and street blocking in the future, as Koopman recommended.





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 Download: Cruise accident report to the California DMV (PDF)

About the author: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo
Gustavo Henrique Ruffo profile photo

Motoring writer since 1998, Gustavo wants to write relevant stories about cars and their shift to a sustainable future.
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