General Motors’ robotaxi service Cruise has inked a multi-year deal with Uber. The deal will let Uber customers hail a Cruise self-driving taxi from their smartphone starting next year, according to . This means that Cruise’s self-driving taxis will be back on roads for the first time since striking a pedestrian in San Francisco in October 2023.
Neither GM nor Uber gave a specific date or city for Uber’s rollout of Cruise’s robotaxis. A spokesperson told the website that the new partnership between Cruise and Uber would follow Cruise’s re-launch of its own driverless taxi service in 2025.
Cruise is currently testing cars with human drivers on roads in , and with plans to expand to more cities. Uber also has a partnership with the self-driving car fleet that’s currently operating in Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Cruise also just reached an agreement with the following an investigation that started in December of 2022 over three rear-end crashes involving its autonomous driving vehicles. The company was under another investigation following an accident in October in San Francisco when one of its vehicles struck a pedestrian who was thrown into its path by a human-driven vehicle and causing further injuries.
A third-party report released by Cruise found that executives knew about the incident but failed to disclose it in meetings with city officials and federal agencies. at the end of last year following a probe. The company also agreed to pay a fine to the allowing Cruise to restart its operations in the state.