General Motors’ Cruise unit to reintroduce supervised autonomous driving in Phoenix
Autonomous vehicle company Cruise is preparing to put cars back on roads in Phoenix several months after suspending operations.
After resuming manual driving to create maps and collect road information in April, Cruise LLC has announced their automated vehicles “will begin supervised autonomous driving in Phoenix” this week, according to a May 13 announcement. The vehicles will have safety drivers behind the wheel in case of any issues.
After initial testing in Phoenix, Cruise plans to “gradually expand” to Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Tempe, Mesa, Gilbert and Chandler, according to the announcement. It’s not clear when Cruise might return to its other markets.
Cruise is reintroducing its services in the Phoenix market after launching last year in Phoenix, Austin, and San Francisco. The rollout proved tumultuous, and in October the California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended Cruise’s permit to operate in the state over concerns about safety. Cruise paused all operations shortly afterwards in order to examine “its processes, systems and tools,” according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing from parent company General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM).
Cruise permanently laid off 110 Valley employees in December, after the company announced plans to cut 24% of its workforce across the board. GM said in SEC filings that it recorded “employee separation charges of $67 million” in conjunction with the decision to voluntarily pause Cruise’s autonomous vehicle operations.
Cruise’s driverless vehicles have covered over 5 million miles to prepare for real-world driving scenarios, according to the company. In addition to mapping roads in Phoenix, Cruise has performed extensive simulations and closed-course driving to prepare for driverless deployment.
“Safety is the defining principle for everything we do and continues to guide our progress towards resuming driverless operations,” the company stated in its May 13 announcement. “We deploy rigorous safety procedures, protocols and performance requirements to ensure supervised autonomous operations are safe for operation on public roads.”