Uber beginning next year plans to offer Cruise autonomous
vehicles on its platform, Uber announced Thursday. The deal includes a
“dedicated number” of Chevy Bolt-based autonomous vehicles.
Once launched, “when an Uber rider requests a qualifying
ride on the Uber app, they may be presented with the option to have that trip
fulfilled by a Cruise autonomous vehicle,” according to Uber.
As of June 2024, Cruise had resumed supervised autonomous
driving in Phoenix, Houston and Dallas, in addition to its ongoing testing in
Dubai, according to Uber.
The autonomous vehicle division of General Motors resolved yesterday
a nearly two-year probe by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
into a “hard braking” issue by recalling its nearly 1,200 fleet of robotaxis to
install new software to increase perception capabilties. The company, since
last October, has been under an active Department of Justice and Securities and
Exchange Commission investigation after one of its robotaxis ran over a
pedestrian in San Francisco. A June study published in the New Scientist concluded that autonomous cars are somewhat safer than human-driven ones, with exceptions for certain lighting conditions and, importantly, when making turns.
