GM’s Cruise autonomous vehicle (AV) unit is recalling 950 of its driverless cars across the United States following a crash that occurred in California last month that involved a pedestrian.
The U.S. automaker’s AVs are being recalled because the post-collision response detection system of the Cruise Automated Driving Systems (ADS) software could increase safety risks, the NHTSA reports, pointing out that the system may respond improperly after a crash.
In a description of the safety risk, the agency wrote that in some instances, a crash may occur and, after impact, the Collision Detection Subsystem (CDS) may cause the AV to attempt to “pull over out of traffic instead of remaining stationary when a pullover is not the desired post-collision response.”
The recall comes about a month after a pedestrian was dragged to the side of a San Francisco street by one of the company’s robotaxis.
In the NHTSA report, the agency detailed the Oct. 2 accident, saying a human-driven car struck a pedestrian and launched her across their vehicle. She was then thrown onto the pavement in the immediate path of a Cruise, which pulled the person about 20 feet forward.
The AV initially stopped before attempting to pull over out of traffic after the collision rather than remaining stationary. The improper response hit the pedestrian, who was critically injured in the accident, and one of her legs was pinned under one of the AV’s tires. The woman was eventually rescued by firefighters who lifted the car off her.
The company said that with the updated software, Cruise AVs will remain stationary should a similar incident occur in the future.
“Cruise has developed a software update that remedies the issue described in this notice,” U.S. safety regulators said in the report, adding the company has already updated software in test vehicles that are being supervised by human safety drivers.
The San Francisco-based self-driving taxi company will “deploy the remedy to its driverless fleet prior to resuming driverless operations,” according to the NHTSA.
Cruise Under Scrutiny
In a statement on Nov. 8, GM’s Cruise unit said that it did the recall even though it determined that a similar crash with a risk of serious injury could happen again every 10 million to 100 million miles without the update.“We strive to continually improve and to make these events even rarer,” the statement said. “As our software continues to improve, it is likely we will file additional recalls to inform both NHTSA and the public of updates to enhance safety across our fleet.”
Cruise said that after examining its system, it has decided to add a chief safety officer, hire a law firm to review its response to the Oct. 2 crash, appoint a third-party engineering firm to find the technical cause and adopt companywide “pillars” to focus on safety and transparency.
Driverless cars have come under scrutiny after the cars were involved in multiple incidents in San Francisco. The latest issues with Cruise may slow the deployment of fully autonomous vehicles that carry passengers without human drivers on board. It also could bring stronger federal regulation of the vehicles, which are carrying passengers in more cities nationwide.
A subsidiary of GM, Cruise was granted approval to operate autonomous car taxi services, known as robotaxis, throughout San Francisco in August.
Just a week after the approval, California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) asked Cruise to cut down its fleet of robotaxis as authorities began investigating two crashes involving the company’s cars.
In late October, Cruise said that it would pause the operation of its driverless fleet nationwide after California regulators found the robotaxis posed a danger to public safety. The state’s DMV also revoked the robotaxi operator’s license.
While the DMV didn’t elaborate on specific reasons for its suspension of Cruise’s license, the agency accused the robotaxi operator of misrepresenting safety information about the autonomous technology in its vehicles. The revocation followed a series of incidents that heightened concerns about the hazards and inconveniences caused by Cruise’s robotaxis.
Following the launch of Cruise’s driverless vehicles, there have been 600 reported incidents of the AVs interfering with street operations, the motion said.
