Cruise said late Thursday that it would suspend all driverless operations in the United States, two days after California regulators told the General Motors subsidiary to remove its self-driving cars from the state’s roads.
The decision affects Cruise’s robotaxi services in Austin, Texas, and Phoenix, where a limited number of public riders could request paid rides. Non-commercial operations in Dallas, Houston and Miami were also suspended.
Cruise did not say how long the suspension will last. The company said it will continue testing self-driving vehicles with a safety driver at the wheel.
in a publish in XFormerly known as Twitter, Cruise said he had made the decision to “examine our processes, systems and tools and reflect on how we can better operate in a way that earns the public’s trust.”
The decision to stop all driverless operations is a major setback for Cruise, which was expanding from limited services in San Francisco and Phoenix. The company also had plans to test its driverless vehicles in Nashville and Seattle.
On Tuesday, the California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended Cruise’s license to test and operate the company’s driverless fleet in the state, citing an Oct. 2 incident in which a Cruise vehicle dragged a San pedestrian. Francisco for 20 feet after a collision.
In an initial meeting with Cruise after the October crash, the DMV said, the company showed in-car camera footage that ended with the self-driving vehicle coming to a complete stop after hitting the pedestrian, who was first hit by another car.
DMV officials later learned through “discussions with another government agency” that the pedestrian had also been dragged, according to a suspension order sent to Cruise.
In a statement, Cruise said he had shown the agency “the entire video multiple times.”
In August, the California DMV told Cruise to cut its fleet in half as the agency investigated a series of other incidents involving the company’s self-driving cars in San Francisco, including a collision with a fire truck.
The California Public Utilities Commission, which green-lighted an expansion of the Cruise robotaxi service in San Francisco in August, also suspended its permit for the service on Tuesday.
