The safety regulator closes the probe in the GM cruise robot

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it is closing its preliminary investigation into problems with hard braking and immobilization in 1,194 autonomous transport vehicles operated by General Motors. Cruise unit.

NHTSA said Thursday that it is closing the review, which began in December 2022, after a review of Cruise’s recall and data analysis showed a drop in hard-braking incidents following software updates.

The robotaxi unit earlier this month filed a recall affecting all of its self-driving vehicles in the United States.

NHTSA said the Office of Failure Investigation determined that Cruise vehicles were involved in 10 crashes, four of which resulted in injuries to vulnerable road users, after analyzing hard braking data from 7,632 incidents commanded by the system. Cruise’s automatic driving.

Cruise still faces investigations by the US Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission following an accident last October in which one of the robotic axles struck a pedestrian and dragged her 20 feet (six meters).

The firm, along with other self-driving vehicle technology companies such as Alphabet’s Waymo and Amazon’s Zoox, have come under heavy regulatory scrutiny over safety concerns after several accidents involving their vehicles .

GM’s Cruise prepares to resume Robotaxi testing after shutdown

Cruise, which resumed U.S. operations in April with a small fleet of human-driven vehicles in Phoenix, Arizona, said it has updated the software in all supervised test vehicles.

However, in response to the October crash and subsequent investigations, Cruise’s CEO resigned last year, and General Motors later announced plans to cut spending on its self-driving unit.

Alphabet’s Waymo Robotaxi unit doubles its paid rides in three months

The California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates robotaxi operations in the state, imposed the maximum penalty of $112,500 on Cruise for failing to promptly provide the commission with full information about the October crash.

(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Eileen Soreng, Anil D’Silva and Shinjini Ganguli)