Cruise continues to kick while down. The General Motors-owned robotaxi company could face fines and penalties after failing to disclose details of an Oct. 2 incident — specifically that one of its vehicles dragged a pedestrian 20 feet, according to decision from a California agency.
The regulatory action comes as Cruise struggles to rebuild public trust and keep its operations afloat after losing its licenses to operate in California for allegedly withholding critical information from regulators about a crash in San Francisco.
In the past two months, Cruise has suspended all driverless and manual driving operations in the US, conducted a safety review of its robotaxis and asked a law firm to review its response to the incident. The company recalled its entire fleet and stopped production of the Origin robot taxi. Co-founder and CEO Kyle Vogt resigned, along with chief product officer Daniel Kan.
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) on Friday order a Cruise to appear at a February 6 hearing to defend herself against charges that she did not provide “full information to the Commission” about the incident and “made misleading public comments about her interactions with the Commission.”
On the evening of October 2, a human driver hit a pedestrian in San Francisco, the impact of which caused the pedestrian to fall into the path of a Cruise robot taxi. The AV initiated a hard braking maneuver and came to a stop, but ended up running over the pedestrian in the process.
The CPUC — and the California Department of Motor Vehicles — say the sequence of events was shared with the agency. Cruz reportedly left out what followed. The Cruise AV attempted a pullover maneuver while the pedestrian was still pinned under the vehicle, causing them to drift.
According to the CPUC decision:
On October 3, 2023, Cruise’s Jose Alvarado called Ashlyn Kong, a CPED analyst at the Commission, and informed her of the conflict. During this telephone meeting, Mr. Alvarado’s description of the incident included only that the Cruise AV stopped immediately after the collision with the pedestrian and contacted Cruise Remote Assistance. Mr. Alvarado’s description of the October 2, 2023 incident omitted that the Cruise AV had engaged in the pullover maneuver that resulted in the pedestrian being dragged an additional 20 feet at 7 mph.
Over the next two weeks, the CPUC and DMV issued data requests seeking more information about the incident, including video documentation. According to the CPUC, Cruise took until Oct. 19, or a full 15 days, to provide the agency with the full video of the incident.
After the incident, Cruise published a blog post, which she has since taken down, detailing the events. The company wrote in the post that it had “proactively shared information…including the full video” with various regulatory authorities, including the DMV, CPUC and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Kong said in a statement that Cruz’s blog post was “inaccurate.”
“The full video was only shared in response to a data request more than two weeks after the incident,” he said.
The commission’s decision did not include a specific penalty, but the agency can fine a public utility between $500 and $100,000 per day if there is a violation, in addition to other penalties. That means Cruise could be looking at $2.25 million in fines, given the time it took the company to deliver a full video of the event.
The CPUC has already suspended Cruise’s permits to charge for ride-hailing robots in California, and is considering a request by the city of San Francisco to repeat the August hearing that gave Cruise permission to charge in the first place. Alphabet-owned Waymo also received a similar permit at the same time, despite strong opposition from city stakeholders. So far, Waymo has mostly managed to stay out of public ire, but Cruise’s plight is affecting the industry at large.
GM has until Dec. 18 to deliver a “verified statement,” which would include “all facts, arguments and legal principles supporting Cruise’s position,” to Administrative Law Judge Robert M. Mason III, “together with a three-ring binder containing a copy of all the authorities mentioned in the verified statement.”
Cruise told TechCrunch that it is committed to rebuilding trust with regulators and will respond to the CPUC in a timely manner. GM is working with law firm Quinn Emanuel to review Cruise’s response to the Oct. 2 incident, including the company’s interactions with law enforcement, regulators and the media. Cruise also showed TechCrunch a shortened version of the video in early October.
A company spokesman said the external review should help Cruise strengthen its protocols and improve its response to such incidents in the future.
It will take time for Cruz to get back to where she was before this incident. GM had told investors that Cruise was on track to generate $50 billion in annual revenue by 2030. The company has been expanding rapidly, announcing new test and launch cities seemingly every week. In addition to San Francisco, Cruise charged for driverless rides in Austin, Houston and Phoenix, and had quietly launched driverless test vehicles in Miami just before it lost its California licenses.
Cruise said last month that it plans to eventually relaunch in one city, but did not provide a timeline. The company is also reviewing layoff plans.
Last week, GM Chief Executive Mary Barra said the automaker would cut spending at the unit next year by “hundreds of millions.” Cruise has lost more than $8 billion since 2017, including $732 million in the third quarter of 2023.
