General Motors’ self-driving taxi company Cruise says it will restart operations in Texas, just months after the company was kicked out of California over safety concerns.
Cruise says it likely will restart operations in Dallas and Houston soon, but it will not have any passengers at first. The company plans to have fewer than 10 cars in each city take test drives on public roads. The vehicles reportedly will have safety drivers in them.
The company said it has not set a date for when the autonomous taxis will start carrying passengers.
“We have not set a timeline for deployment,” the company said. “Our goal is to relaunch in one city with manually driven vehicles and supervised testing as soon as possible once we have taken steps to rebuild trust with regulators and the public.”
California regulators revoked the company’s license to operate in the state after one of its vehicles was filmed dragging a pedestrian under its wheels.
Federal regulators are investigating the company as well. Cruise announced last month that the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department had opened inquiries into the company.
After California’s suspension, parent company GM announced significant cuts to Cruise and took more control over the taxi company. Cruise also lost several executives, with GM replacing many with employees more closely linked to the parent company.
• Vaughn Cockayne can be reached at vcockayne@washingtontimes.com.
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