The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors, publicly announced Thursday that they had completed a recall of the automated driving systems in Cruise’s robotaxi fleet.
A prior version of Cruise’s software was unable to adapt to a path change from a human driver while making an unprotected left turn.
The error in the automated driving system (ADS) caused a June 3 crash, which prompted the recall. The software had made 123,560 unprotected left turns prior to the incident.
The crash came one day after California regulators allowed Cruise to begin commercializing its ADS-assisted robotaxis in the state.
As the Cruise vehicle was making an unprotected left turn (UPL), its ADS detected an oncoming Toyota Prius going 40 mph, 15 mph over the speed limit, in the right turn lane.
Judging that the oncoming car was directly in the Cruise car’s path, the software initiated a hard brake - only for the oncoming driver to switch to going straight, striking the stopped Cruise vehicle in its right rear.
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“Cruise has determined that in this unique UPL situation, the ADS had to decide between two different risk scenarios and chose the one with the least potential for a serious collision at the time, before the oncoming vehicle’s sudden change of direction,” the NHTSA recall report read.
Cruise suspended UPLs in its active fleet and recalled 80 of its vehicles in order to update the software, a process it completed July 6.
“Since releasing the new software update on July 6, 2022, Cruise has gradually reintroduced UPLs in its fleet,” the recall report reads.
The report on the recall of the vehicles, which are not yet sold directly to consumers, was dated Monday and posted on the NHTSA website Thursday, according to Bloomberg News.
“We submitted this voluntary filing in the interest of transparency to the public. It pertains to a prior version of software and does not impact or change our current on-road operations,” Cruise spokesperson Hannah Lindlow told Bloomberg in an email.
• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.
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