GM-owned Cruise is facing a preliminary government investigation

The NHTSA this week opened a probe into Cruise, an autonomous driving subsidiary of General Motors, after reports of multiple incidents involving pedestrian injuries and the company’s driverless vehicles.

The incidents in question:

• A pedestrian was struck by a hit-and-run driver, which deflected them into a separate lane in front of a Cruise vehicle. The AV braked hard, but still made contact with the pedestrian and ended up trapping them for a period of time.
• A Cruise AV moving at ~1.4 mph struck a pedestrian who stepped into a crosswalk after the stoplight had turned green, allowing the car to proceed.

The NHTSA has also identified two further incidents from videos posted online. The agency’s probe applies to all 594 Cruise vehicles.

📸 Big picture: Cruise and Waymo, an autonomous driving subsidiary of Alphabet, are currently operating driverless taxi services in Phoenix and San Francisco, and are both in the process of rolling out said driverless taxis to more cities.

But, while some say things are going well, others say existing driverless cars are operating about as smoothly as a 35-year-old Midwestern road. There have been multiple reports of driverless vehicles in San Francisco making unexpected stops in travel lanes, impeding/colliding with emergency vehicles, hanging out in construction zones, and driving on sidewalks, in addition to doing a terrible job escaping from the police.