That’s the name that Cruise, the driverless-car company backed by General Motors, gave to one of the robotaxis it’s been testing in Dallas.
Cruise on Thursday night rightly decided to temporarily cease operations here and throughout the country amid serious safety concerns about its cars.
The dominoes have been falling quickly for the company. Its decision, announced on the social media site X, came just two days after the California Department of Motor Vehicles revoked its license, saying the cars posed “an unreasonable risk to public safety.”
That action came the day after the National Traffic Safety Administration said it was investigating concerns that Cruise cars, which the company individually names, were getting too close to pedestrians on roads and sidewalks. Earlier this month, a Cruise car named Panini ran over a San Francisco pedestrian that had been hit by another vehicle, pinned the woman under the car, then dragged her 20 feet when it began to move again.
“The most important thing for us right now is to take steps to rebuild public trust,” Cruise said on X. “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.”
Cruise had been in the final stage of testing its cars in Dallas. In June, it began running supervised driving tests and mapping in Oak Lawn, Uptown, downtown, Deep Ellum and Lower Greenville. It was beginning to test its cars without drivers, and roll out service to the public by the end of the year, an official told the Dallas City Council’s public safety committee on Oct. 10.
Last month, we applauded the favorable Texas regulatory environment that welcomed Cruise and many other autonomous-vehicle companies into our state. The company had begun operations in Houston and Austin as well as Dallas. But we also cautioned that frequent regulatory review would be necessary as robotaxis and other driverless vehicles became more prevalent.
It seems that time has come. State Sen. Kelly Hancock, R- North Richland Hills, who sponsored the 2017 law setting the ground rules for autonomous vehicles in Texas, “has been watching this issue closely and meeting about it,” Stacey Chamberlin, his chief of staff, told us.
Under state law, cities have virtually no say in how these cars operate in their boundaries, which the City Council’s Public Safety Committee Chair Cara Mendelsohn says is problematic.
“I’m not opposed to autonomous vehicles at all,” Mendelsohn said. “I’m just concerned there are no guardrails on this.”
It’s not clear when Guacamole or any of the other Dallas robotaxis will be back on Dallas streets. But when they are, we hope lawmakers and government officials will be closely watching to determine if more control of this exciting new technology is warranted.
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