SAN FRANCISCO, Sept 24 —A year after being suspended from all activity following several road traffic accidents, Cruise is tentatively relaunching its robotaxis in the San Francisco Bay Area. Meanwhile, its rival Waymo has integrated seamlessly into the city’s traffic.

In the fall of 2023, the self-driving taxi company Cruise had to recall nearly 1,000 robotaxis, after a series of incidents that led to the suspension of its activity, until further notice, by the Californian authorities. Cruise is a GM subsidiary specialising in autonomous vehicles. Its robotaxi model is a fully autonomous electric vehicle with no driver’s seat, steering wheel or joystick, and with seating for up to six passengers. These setbacks came at a time when Cruise had just signed an agreement with Honda to deploy an initial offering of autonomous cabs on the streets of Tokyo in 2026, a major first in Japan.

A year later, Cruise has announced a gradual resumption of operations in the San Francisco Bay Area. Initially, Cruise will deploy several vehicles with drivers to map the streets of Sunnyvale and Mountain View, before testing a very small fleet of robotaxis later this fall, under the watchful eye of the local authorities.

This discreet return to California follows a gradual resumption of operations in Dallas and Phoenix. Meanwhile, Cruise announced this summer that it had signed a partnership with Uber to bring its robotaxis to the ride-sharing platform in 2025, just like Waymo (Alphabet). For the time being, Cruise’s rival is proving a great success, and continues to break ridership records, with over 50,000 paid rides each week in the three major cities where its service operates (San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles). — ETX Studio