The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has threatened driverless taxi company Cruise with fines and sanctions unless it can prove it didn’t withhold information and make misleading statements about an accident in October.
According to [PDF] CPUC Administrative Law Judge Robert Mason, Cruise officials failed to tell the CPUC that a pedestrian hit by a Cruise vehicle on October 2 was dragged 20 feet in front of the car that parked on top of her. Cruise has been in a tailspin since the incident, with a national pause in operations and a management shake-up.
“[Cruise spokesman Jose] Alvarado’s description of the incident was simply that the Cruise AV stopped immediately upon hitting the pedestrian and contacted Cruise’s remote assistance,” Mason said.
“Mr. Alvarado’s description of the incident on October 2, 2023, omitted that the Cruise AV engaged in the pullover manoeuvre, which resulted in the pedestrian being dragged an additional 20 feet at 7 mph,” the judge added, citing the testimony of the CPUC analyst who was first informed of the incident.
As well as failing to mention the dragging of the pedestrian, who was left in critical condition after the accident, Cruise allegedly withheld video evidence of the collision from the California Department of Motor Vehicles and the CPUC, only providing a full account on 18 October.
“Cruise misled the DMV, and by extension the Commission, into believing that the original video shown and commented upon accurately captured the full extent of the incident,” said Mason.
In addition to Cruise’s actions towards the Commission and DMV, Mason said that Cruise’s public statement about the incident, which Cruise removed from its website on Friday “out of respect for ongoing regulatory engagement”, was also publicly misleading.
According to the judge, Cruise wrote that it had “proactively shared information with the DMV, CPUC and [National Highway Traffic Safety Administration] NHTSA … when in fact it withheld information … for 15 days”.
Cruise has until a February 6 hearing to “show cause, if any, why Cruise should not be subject to fines, penalties and/or other regulatory sanctions,” Mason said. The car company could face penalties of up to $105,000 per violation of several sections of the California Public Utilities Code, fines of up to $7,500 per day per violation, and other measures.
“Cruise is committed to rebuilding trust with our regulators and will respond to the CPUC in a timely manner,” a company spokesperson told The Register.
We thought computers were supposed to make driving safer?
Cruise, which is owned by General Motors, has had a bumpy ride in recent years, and it has only got worse since the October pedestrian collision.
The 2 October accident, and another pedestrian collision in August, triggered an NHTSA investigation into Cruise’s safety record in mid-October – just the first sign of more trouble to come.
By 24 October, the California DMV had suspended Cruise’s licence to operate driverless taxis in the state, in part because of the misrepresentations cited in Mason’s decision. A few days later, Cruise announced that it was suspending all driverless operations.
Cruise then issued a software recall on 8 November to add anti-pedestrian drag features to its vehicles, but by 15 November had suspended all supervised and manual operations of its fleet. Five days later, founder and CEO Kyle Vogt announced his resignation from the company.
Last week, GM CEO Mary Barra said her company would “significantly” reduce its spending on Cruise, after previously halting production of the Cruise-branded “Origin” autonomous vans. GM has invested around $2 billion in Cruise since it bought the company in 2016.
