The last year has been a challenging time for the self-driving car company Cruise, including a temporary pause to its self-driving activities last October and some high-profile exits from the company. Those setbacks didn’t represent the end of the road for the company, however; instead, in May, Cruise began operating self-driving cars — albeit with safety drivers along for the ride — in Phoenix, Arizona. Now, they seem to have entered the next stage in their comeback: in this case, a high-profile partnership with ride-share company Uber.
As Juby Babu and Abhirup Roy reported for Reuters, Uber users will be able to book a trip on a Cruise vehicle beginning next year. This is not Uber’s first foray into self-driving vehicles; Reuters noted that they have partnered with Cruise competitor Waymo on services in Phoenix.
Uber had previously had a division dedicated to self-driving vehicles, but it sold it to the startup Aurora in 2020. (For the record, Aurora recently raised nearly half a billion dollars via selling stock, which Axios reported would bolster the company’s efforts to implement a self-driving truck program.)
Cruise’s CEO, Marc Whitten, struck an optimistic note when discussing the Uber partnership. “We are excited to partner with Uber to bring the benefits of safe, reliable, autonomous driving to even more people, unlocking a new era of urban mobility,” Whitten said in a statement.
Robotaxi Company Cruise Is Pausing All “Driverless Operations”
Their announcement cites the importance of “public trust”Earlier this week, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration closed an investigation into Cruise over braking difficulties experienced by its self-driving cars. As the Associated Press reported, this came in the wake of Cruise announcing a recall for nearly 1,200 driverless vehicles. Another NHTSA investigation, this one into injured pedestrians in San Francisco.
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