Cruise ship in San Francisco on February 2, 2022.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
General Motors' Its autonomous touring vehicle unit will redeploy cars on U.S. roads on Tuesday for the first time since October, starting with a small fleet of human-piloted vehicles in Phoenix, the company said.
The relaunch comes after the company suspended operations weeks after an Oct. 2 accident in which a pedestrian in San Francisco was dragged 20 feet by a robotaxi after being struck by a separate vehicle.
The company said the redeployed vehicles will not operate as they did previously — like robotaxis — but will “create maps and collect road information in select cities, starting with Phoenix.”
Cruz said her “goal is to resume driverless operations,” but did not provide a timeline for doing so. It also has not announced a timeline for expanding human-driven vehicles to other cities.
“We have not yet committed to where or when we will begin supervised or driverless operations,” a company spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC.
However, the company described the relaunched fleet with human drivers as “a critical step to validate our self-driving systems as we work to return to our driverless mission.”
“In October 2023, we paused our fleet operations to focus on rebuilding trust with regulators and the communities we serve, and to redesign our approach to safety,” Cruz said in a blog post. “We have made significant progress, guided by new company leadership, recommendations from outside experts, and a focus on close partnership with the communities in which our vehicles operate. We are committed to this improvement as an ongoing effort.”
A third-party investigation into the October accident and subsequent fallout, ordered by GM and Cruise, found that cultural issues, incompetence and poor leadership were at the center of the regulatory oversight processes that led to the accident. The investigation also investigated allegations of a cover-up by Cruz's leadership, but found no evidence to support those claims.
Cruz said in January that she “accepts” the report's conclusions. The San Francisco-based company, which is about 80% owned by GM, said it would “work to implement all” recommendations and that it was “fully cooperating” with investigations by state and federal agencies following the Oct. 2 accident.
The company said in January that investigations or inquiries into the crash included those conducted by the California Department of Motor Vehicles, the California Public Utilities Commission, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Before the accident, Cruise was planning a major expansion of robo-taxis outside its home market where the majority of its vehicles operate.
In addition to ceasing operations, Cruz's leadership has been decimated: its co-founders have resigned, including CEO and co-founder Kyle Vogt, and nine other leaders have been ousted. The project also laid off 24% of its workforce as well as a group of contractors.