GM's Cruise Continues To Test Vehicles On Foreign Roads Despite Being Deemed Unsafe In The US

General Motors Co‘s GM autonomous vehicle subsidiary Cruise is reportedly continuing to test its vehicles on public roads in Dubai and Japan despite being deemed unsafe in the U.S.

What Happened: A “small pilot” of vehicles continue to be tested overseas, Reuters reported, citing a company spokesperson. The spokesperson did not confirm the size of the fleet.

The vehicles overseas are similar to the ones in the U.S. and it is unclear what differentiates the vehicles or makes them safer on foreign roads.

Cruise paused its autonomous vehicle operations in San Francisco in October following a directive from the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). California DMV suspended Cruise’s autonomous vehicle deployment and driverless testing permits citing “unreasonable risk” to public safety.

The authority further alleged that the company misrepresented information on the safety of its autonomous technology. The suspension of operations in Austin, Phoenix, and Houston followed a few days later.

Earlier this week, the company announced that it is also pausing supervised and manual AV operations in the U.S. “This orderly pause is a further step to rebuild public trust while we undergo a full safety review,” Cruise said, while adding that it will continue to operate its vehicles in “closed course training environments.”

Why It Is Important: Cruise has been embroiled in safety concerns after one of its AVs got involved in an accident in early October. In the incident, a human-driven vehicle traveling adjacent to a Cruise AV collided with a pedestrian, sending the pedestrian across the vehicle and onto the ground in the path of the AV. The AV made contact with a pedestrian and pulled them forward by about 20 feet. Cruise issued a recall for a subsystem within 950 of its automated driving systems following the accident.

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