Cruise, the self-driving vehicle subsidiary of General Motors, is now inviting potential passengers from Phoenix and Austin to join the waiting list be among the first passengers of the robotaxi Cruise.
The company operates a fully driverless commercial service robotaxi service in San Francisco since June, with a completely driverless sense, there is no human safety operator behind the wheel. Last month, Cruise announced plans to add Austin, Texas and Phoenix, Arizona to his resume. During GM’s third quarter earnings call, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt said the company remains on track to complete its first commercial driverless public rides and deliveries by the end of the year.
When Cruise initially launched his waitlist to join the “Cruise Rider Community” in San Francisco earlier this year, he promised rides would be free at first. The company has in the past said early rides in Austin and Phoenix may be free with plans to start charging for the service soon after, but a spokesperson told TechCrunch today that Cruise will launch immediately. a completely driverless paid service.
The company began supervised testing in Austin last month with more than a dozen vehicles, according to Vogt, who noted that Cruise’s mapping systems are “working as expected.” Cruise intends to start on a limited scale and grow as the company produces more vehicles – specifically, the Origin of the cruisea purpose-built AV that Cruise will rely on for its exponential levels of scale and robotaxi dominance across the United States
Interestingly, as part of the waitlist questionnaire, Cruise asks what time of day passengers would most likely use the service: morning, afternoon, night and late night. In San Francisco, Cruise only operates from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. in San Francisco, largely due to California regulations. Cruise’s main competitor, Waymo, which has been providing commercial robotaxi service outside of Phoenix since 2020, operates 24/7, according to Company FAQs. So it follows that Cruise may not have to remain an overnight vehicle when he travels to Arizona, at least.
Cruise said he will share more updates on the times of day he will be running his service in the near future.
Comments are closed.