Cruise pauses all driverless operations two days after the California DMV suspended its permits, but will continue operating supervised autonomous vehicles
Cruise said Thursday evening it has paused all driverless operations, a decision that comes just two days after the California Department …
The company is preserving supervised operations rather than abandoning vehicle testing altogether. That split makes the episode a concrete test of whether autonomous services can retain a development path after regulators remove permission for unattended public operation.
First-order effects
Cruise’s driverless service is halted, while its supervised autonomous-vehicle activity can continue under the company’s stated plan.
Cruise must shift operational attention from commercial driverless deployment toward supervised testing and regulatory remediation; its autonomous-vehicle program loses the direct operating feedback of an active driverless service.
Other robotaxi developers face a clearer signal that fleet access and deployment permission can be curtailed after safety concerns, increasing the importance of demonstrable operational controls.
Third-order effects
The episode reinforces a model in which autonomous mobility scales through jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction approval rather than a single national operating framework, especially amid fragmented US self-driving oversight.
If such interventions recur, the sector may treat supervised operation and tighter runtime controls as a longer-lived bridge to driverless deployment, rather than a short transitional phase.
The trend: Autonomous-vehicle deployment is moving toward more tightly governed, reversible operations in which regulators can quickly separate supervised testing from unattended commercial service.
(1/3) The most important thing for us right now is to take steps to rebuild public trust. Part of this involves taking a hard look inwards and at how we do work at Cruise, even if it means doing things that are uncomfortable or difficult.
(2/3) In that spirit, we have decided to proactively pause driverless operations across all of our fleets while we take time to examine our processes, systems, and tools and reflect on how we can better operate in a way that will earn public trust.
(3/3) This isn't related to any new on-road incidents, and supervised AV operations will continue. We think it's the right thing to do during a period when we need to be extra vigilant when it comes to risk, relentlessly focused on safety, & taking steps to rebuild public trust.
So Waymo's software has gotten several times more safety-driver testing than Cruise—maybe as much as 10x. It does not seem surprising that Cruise has had more problems since launching driverlessly.
Waymo announced 20 million miles of testing (with safety drivers) in 2020 and is now at 35 million. Cruise hit 2 million in 2020, 3 million in 2021, and I don't think they've announced a new number (for safety driver testing) since then.
NEW: We just learned Cruise is suspending all driverless car operations, including in Texas. The Austin Council Mobility Committee is meeting tomorrow, Oct. 27, where staff will brief us on this developing topic. [image]
After losing its California DMV and CPUC robotaxi permits (and being accused of lying to the government), Cruise is halting *all* driverless operations — everywhere. This is an existential moment for the company, and for the entire AV industry.
Finally, reality strikes: driving is about much more than mere collision avoidance. It's a human intelligence task today's AI cannot match. Yet in 2017 I recall @UniofOxford telling the House of Lords the driverless car was a “solved problem”. Hmm. 🤔