GM-Backed Cruise Gets Approval To Carry Passengers In Driverless Cars

Cruise is planning to test Chevrolet Bolt EVs, which are equipped with driverless technology.

What Happened: Autonomous vehicle company Cruise has received a permit to carry passengers in its self-driving vehicles in California.

In a statement, the California Public Utilities Fee (CPUC) said on Friday that the Cruise can now offer passengers rides in prototype robotaxis.

Majority-owned by General Motors Company GM, Cruise also has backing from SoftBank Group Corp 9984, Microsoft Corporation MSFT, and Honda Motor Co Ltd 7267. 

Cruise is the first autonomous vehicle company in California to get such a permit from the CPUC.

The permit is considered one of several regulatory requirements autonomous vehicle companies have to meet to deploy their vehicles commercially. 

According to CPUC, the company will not charge passengers for any rides in the test AVs, and it will have to submit quarterly reports about its vehicles and passenger safety plan. 

Alphabet Inc’s GOOGL GOOG subsidiary Waymo LLC, Amazon Inc’s AMZN Zoox, and Aurora have CPUC permits for driverless vehicle testing, but they haven’t got permission to taxi members of the public without a driver on board.

Why It Matters: According to CNBC, Cruise is expected to start producing its driverless shuttles by 2023. Cruise logged 2 million autonomous-driving miles (3.22 million km) in the city in the permit application.

Cruise has said its service hours would be from late evening to early morning with speeds of up to 30 mph. 

Cruise and Waymo are seeking permits to start charging for rides and delivery using autonomous vehicles in San Francisco.

Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia