Cruise Gets Approval to Test Driverless Vehicles in California

By Madelaine D. First Posted: Oct 16, 2020 09:40 PM EDT

Cruise has finally been given the green light to test its driverless cars on California's public roads.

According to The Verge, the self-driving company owned by General Motors is planning to test its vehicles without any human driver behind the wheel by the end of the year.

(Photo : Digital News/ Twitter Screenshot)
Cruise Gets Approval to Test Its Driverless Cars

Cruise is the fifth company to receive a driverless permit from the Department of Motor Vehicles in California after the others like AutoX, Waymo, Nuro, and Zoox. Up to this day, 60 companies in California have active permits to test autonomous cars with a safety driver.

Cruise CEO Dan Ammann said in a blog post that the company might not be the first to receive a driverless permit. However, the firm aims to be the first to test fully driverless cars in San Francisco.

Ammann said: "Before the end of the year, we'll be sending cars out onto the streets of SF - without gasoline and without anyone at the wheel."

He noted that safely removing the driver is the real benchmark of a self-driving car, adding that burning fossil fuels is no way to build the future of transportation. A Cruise's fleet of vehicles is composed of 200 electric Chevy Bolts.

The company's spokesperson has yet to determine if a safety driver would remain in the vehicle's passenger seat during the testing, nor if the firm would use chase vehicles to follow its driverless cars.
She said those details and the service area within Cruise's San Francisco geofence would be announced. A geofence is the invisible walls that determine where the vehicle can operate or not.

Unlike rival Waymo, Cruise still needs to demonstrate the cars if they are fully driverless vehicles publicly. Last week, the rival Wamp announced that it would make its fully driverless-hail service.

Cruise has yet to publicly demonstrate its fully driverless vehicles, unlike rival Waymo, which just last week revealed it would be making its fully driverless ride-hail service in Phoenix, Arizona, available to more customers. In Arzon to be more open to more customers.

Non-employees are not allowed to ride Cruise' vehicles. In 2019, it planned to launch a public self-driving taxi service but has failed to do so. A new date needs to be set by Cruise for the start of its publican Robo Taxi service.

Before the federal government's permit, the California permit came. The incident weighs a separate application from Cruise to deploy fully driverless Chevy Bolt vehicles with no steering wheels or pedals. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said that it would gather public opinions and conduct a review, but still need to issue a final decision.

Cruise revealed last year its Cruise Origin, a fully driverless prototype car without pedals, steering wheels, or any controls associated with human driving. The vehicle is built to be shared by several passengers, but it remains to be seen how much interest there is for shared cars.