GM-backed Cruise starts driverless AV testing in San Francisco

Cruise has joined the growing ranks of self-driving technology companies removing human safety drivers from at least part of their test fleets. But those safety operators won’t be going far. No longer behind the wheel, they will remain nearby – in the passenger’s seat, company officials said Wednesday “We recognize this is both a trust race as well as a tech race,” a Cruise spokesperson said. “We will maintain a safety operator in the passenger seat. The safety operator has the ability to bring the vehicle to a stop in the event of an emergency, but does not have access to standard driver controls.” Meanwhile, executives at the General Motors-backed company lauded the removal of humans from behind the wheel as signal of progress. It comes after five years of testing in San Francisco in which Cruise vehicles accumulated more than 2 million real-world miles of testing. Cruise said the first ride with no human behind the wheel occurred on a November night in the Sunset, a neighborhood on the western end of its San Francisco operational hub. Cruise CEO Dan Ammann described the development as the first step in a gradual process that will see the scope of driverless operations grow in both number of driverless vehicles on the road and the area those vehicles can serve. “We’re approaching ramp-up in a methodical and responsible manner, starting with a few cars in a few areas of the city,” Ammann said Wednesday. “We’ll expand on a steady and continuous basis.”

GM-backed Cruise starts driverless AV testing in San Francisco

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