Cory Gunther
At this point, it’s no secret that GM’s Cruise self-driving robotaxi service isn’t going too well. Then again, new technology like this is bound to hit a few speed bumps or potholes. This week we learned that Cruise issued a voluntary software recall, updated the system, and has new software in all 80 of its self-driving cars.
For those unaware, these self-driving autonomous vehicles can only drive on “select streets” in San Francisco from 10 PM to 6 AM, at speeds no more than 30mph, and under ideal weather conditions with no fog or rain. The robotaxi service started accepting paying customers in early June.
In June, a Cruise vehicle without a human driver present was involved in a car wreck that left two riders injured. Then, in July, several Cruise autonomous vehicles stopped in the middle of the road for no apparent reason, wouldn’t move, and the company had to dispatch employees to override the cars manually.
Now, the company is revising the software and making several changes to improve these self-driving vehicles’ overall system, experience, and safety features.
According to Reuters, federal regulators said the software needed a recall as it could “incorrectly predict” an oncoming vehicle’s path, which may result in accidents and bodily injury. Cruise has since updated the software in all 80 cars and says this scenario, while unlikely, shouldn’t happen with this latest release.
For what it’s worth, Cruise said that only one incident has occurred in over 123,560 driverless unprotected left turns (the type of turn that caused an accident). However, it still revised the software to improve safety and automation. Either way, it’ll be interesting to see how this technology advances in the coming years.
via AutoEvolution
