NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES we are assured that autonomous vehicles are the way of the future, it seems more bad news appears to make us wonder if we’ll ever live to see it.
Autonomous vehicles are under test in various locations in the United States, but a recent incident in San Francisco has once again put their future in doubt.
General Motors has announced that it will be recalling all of its 950 robo-taxis (the largest fleet in the US) and faces a $US1.5 million ($A2.1 million) fine.
In October 2023, a San Francisco pedestrian who had been struck by a hit-and-run driver was hit a second time by a Cruise robo-taxi which initially came to a stop but then drove a further six metres with the woman trapped under the vehicle.
GM suspended it Cruise robo-taxi program following the incident, citing safety concerns following multiple incidents and the suspension of the robo-taxi operator’s licence in California.
The Cruise Origin is a six-seat robo-taxi shuttle with no steering wheel or controls for a human driver and is a development in conjunction with Japanese car maker Honda.
In typically bureaucratic language, the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) issued a voluntary recall in conjunction with GM to fix software issues which, according to the safety body, may cause Cruise vehicles to “respond improperly after a crash”.
The recall is intended to correct a software fault (and anyone who owns a computer knows how often they occur!) when a Cruise robo-taxi attempts to pull over after a collision instead of remaining where it is.
Cruise commented that a similar collision is possible every 10 million to 100 million miles of driving. It was probably of little comfort to the injured pedestrian! They added that “The most important thing for us right now is to take steps to rebuild public trust. Part of this involved taking a hard look inwards and at how we do work at Cruise, even if it means doing things that are uncomfortable or difficult.”