Robotaxi Cruise vehicles are making a return – but they won’t be autonomous

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After a monthslong hiatus from operations, Cruise vehicles will return to America’s streets.
The first city to see the robotaxi vehicles back on its roadways will be Phoenix, the company announced Tuesday in a news release.
The cars will have human drivers — a move that is reportedly intended to help Cruise create maps and gather road information to improve safety for when autonomous vehicles do return.
(KRON) — After a monthslong hiatus from operations, Cruise vehicles will return to America’s streets. The first city to see the robotaxi vehicles back on its roadways will be Phoenix, the company announced Tuesday in a news release.
The vehicles will not, however, be autonomous. Instead, the cars will have human drivers — a move that is reportedly intended to help Cruise create maps and gather road information to improve safety for when autonomous vehicles do return, the company said.
Cruise dubbed it the “next step” in its mission to have driverless vehicles back on the streets.
If the manual-driving-vehicle reboot in Phoenix is successful, Cruise will assess and plan to expand its efforts in other U.S. cities. Having manual-driving vehicles cruising around the city is a “critical step” for the advancement of Cruise’s self-driving technology, the company says.
Last October, Cruise pulled all of its driverless cars off the streets nationwide. This came weeks after a woman in San Francisco was sent to the hospital after she was seen trapped under an autonomous Cruise vehicle.
“We think it’s the right thing to do during a period when we need to be extra vigilant when it comes to risk, relentlessly focused on safety, & taking steps to rebuild public trust,” Cruise said at the time, adding that it was the company’s priority to “rebuild public trust.”
The autonomous vehicle company has also undergone a leadership change in the past few months. Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt resigned from his position in November. Although no one has replaced Vogt as CEO, President/CAO Craig B. Glidden and President/CTO Mo Elshenawy currently serve as the company’s leaders, according to Cruise’s website.
“In October 2023, we paused operations of our fleet to focus on rebuilding trust with regulators and the communities we serve, and to redesign our approach to safety,” Cruise said in a press release. “We’ve made significant progress, guided by new company leadership, recommendations from third-party experts, and a focus on a close partnership with the communities in which our vehicles operate. We are committed to this improvement as a continuous effort.”
Cruise was founded in October 2013 in San Francisco. Its full announcement about resuming manual-driving operations can be viewed in the press release posted on Cruise’s website.
Nexstar’s KRON asked Cruise if these human-driven vehicles would eventually return to San Francisco. The San Francisco-based company said, “because no two cities are the same,” it does not have a timeline for when that will happen.
“We do not have a timeline. Safety will guide our progress throughout this process,” Cruise said in an email response to KRON.
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