SF Examiner – Why 2023 was a such bumpy ride for self-driving cars in The City
See full original article in SF Examiner by Greg Wong.
All roads driven by autonomous vehicles led to San Francisco in 2023.
Cruise and Waymo reached several key milestones in 2023, highlighted by a pivotal CPUC vote that cleared the way for both companies to expand full-bore throughout San Francisco. But as AVs packed the roads, the debate over their presence here reached a fever pitch after several incidents that sparked local ire and attracted national attention.
The breakthrough year for self-driving cars was marred by a tumultuous final few months for Cruise, which has been in free fall since one of its vehicles hit and dragged a pedestrian 20 feet near Union Square. The incident spurred a state and federal investigation, prompted several high-ranking executives to step down and clouded the future of robotaxis entering 2024.
Here is a timeline of the roller-coaster year for autonomous vehicles in San Francisco:
Jan. 23: The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority, County Transportation Authority and Mayor’s Office of Disability write a letter to the California Public Utilities Commission urging it to take a “incremental” approach with Cruise and Waymo and not allow the companies’ vehicles to be commercially deployed until their technology is improved.
Feb. 22: Cruise announces its cars have completed one million driverless miles. The company specifically touts that many of the miles were logged through the “dense, often chaotic, streets of San Francisco.”
Feb. 28: Waymo announces it eclipsed one million driverless miles in January, including through the “densest streets of San Francisco.”
April. 25: Cruise begins operating in San Francisco at all hours of the day, but only for company employees. Paying customers can only use its services from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
May 21: A Waymo self-driving car hits and kills a small dog in Bernal Heights.
June 9: A Cruise car appears to block emergency vehicles responding to a mass shooting in the Mission District in which nine people were injured. Bystander video shows one of the company’s robotaxis halted in the middle of the road while a first responder yells it is “blocking emergency, medical and fire — I gotta get it out of here now.” Cruise denies that the car impeded any emergency responses and claimed it acted accordingly.
June 22: San Francisco Fire Chief Jeannine Nicholson tells the Los Angeles Times that Cruise and Waymo’s vehicles “aren’t ready for prime time,” a line she and other San Francisco leaders will use repeatedly in the coming months.
June 27: The CPUC’s vote on whether Cruise and Waymo can expand their paid passenger services without restrictions across every corner of The City at all hours of the day and increase their fleet sizes limitlessly is pushed from June 29 to July 13.
July 11: The CPUC vote is postponed again until Aug. 10.
Aug. 3: Cruise and the San Francisco Giants announce a jersey patch partnership in which a specialty Cruise logo will be featured on the sleeves of all Giants uniforms through at least 2025. The sponsorship represents the first advertisement patch ever on a Giants uniform.
Aug. 7: The CPUC holds a public hearing ahead of its looming vote, offering a chance for both sides of the intensifying debate to state their cases in front of regulators. Cruise and Waymo officials laud their vehicles’ safety records, while San Francisco leaders stress that robotaxis continue to disrupt traffic and first responders at an increasing rate.
During the meeting, Cruise reveals that the company has 300 and 100 vehicles operating during the day and at night, respectively, while Waymo says it has 250 cars in circulation.
Aug. 10: After delaying the decision twice, the CPUC votes to allow Waymo and Cruise to expand paid passenger services across San Francisco, making it the first major U.S. city with two fleets of driverless ride-hailing services running 24/7.
Aug. 11: A Cruise robotaxi stalls in North Beach, creating a chain reaction in which upwards of 10 additional Cruise cars stop behind it, snarling traffic along Grant Avenue. Cruise claims the initial car halted because a pedestrian “intentionally interfered” with it, though the company doesn’t specify how.
That same night, a Cruise car stalls in the intersection at 34th and Judah Street, jamming traffic as scores of people attempt to leave the Outside Lands music festival in Golden Gate Park. Cruise says the car stopped because of a cell network jammed by thousands of concergoers.
Cruise initially blames the North Beach backup on the Outside Lands cell-tower issues but later clarified to The Examiner that the two were separate situations.
Aug. 16: San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu files a motion with the CPUC requesting that it pause the two companies’ plans to expand in The City without restrictions, arguing that the technology is “not yet safe.”
Aug. 17: A Cruise robotaxi collides with a fire truck just blocks from San Francisco City Hall. A passenger inside the self-driving car is hospitalized with minor injuries. The same night, another Cruise car with no passengers hits a vehicle at 26th and Mission streets. The driver was treated for injuries and released at the scene.
Aug. 18: The California Department of Motor Vehicles orders Cruise to halve its fleet of robotaxis in San Francisco while it investigates “concerning incidents” involving its vehicles. The agency says the reductions will remain in effect until the probe is complete and the company “takes appropriate corrective actions to improve road safety.”
Sept. 11: In a second and separate filing, David Chiu formally asks the CPUC to revote on whether Cruise and Waymo can expand their operations without restrictions in The City. He argues the state regulator too hastily approved the technology through an inadequate review process, didn’t impose any safety regulations and failed to comply with environmental law.
Sept 20: Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and San Mateo Rep. Kevin Mullin pen a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration asking it to collect more safety data on Cruise and Waymo.
Oct. 2: A human driver strikes a woman and hurls her into the path of a Cruise robotaxi. The Cruise vehicle hits her, stops on top of her and drags her 20 feet while she is trapped underneath it. Firefighters are forced to use heavy rescue tools to lift the vehicle off the woman, who suffers multiple traumatic injuries and remains hospitalized.
Oct. 9: Waymo announces its paid driverless taxi service now covers all of The City’s nearly 47 square miles.
Oct. 12: In the wake of several crashes, Cruise announces a raft of safety upgrades, including improved recognition when its cars approach emergency scenes. But San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin tells The Examiner the improvements only serve as an admission by the company that the technology never should have been fully deployed in the first place.
Oct. 17: The NHTSA opens an investigation into Cruise after receiving two reports that its vehicles injured pedestrians and identifying two other incidents from videos posted to public websites. The investigation includes a probe into the Oct. 2 crash.
Oct. 24: The DMV suspends Cruise’s license to operate its AVs without a safety driver present, effective immediately. The state regulator says the company’s vehicles “are not safe for the public’s operation” based on “the performance of the vehicles.” Cruise can continue to deploy vehicles with a safety driver on board but can’t charge fares. DMV officials don’t say whether the Oct. 2 crash sparked the suspension.
Oct. 26: Cruise announces a self-imposed pause on all driverless vehicle operations nationwide. The company emphasizes that the decision is not due to “new on-road incidents.” Human-driven Cruise cars will continue to be deployed.
Nov. 8: The CPUC orders Cruise to halt its paid ride-hailing service while considering City Attorney Chiu’s request to rehear whether to issue the permit that allows the company to do so. The CPUC denies Chiu’s request to revote on Waymo’s permit to charge for rides throughout The City.
Nov. 16: Cruise pauses all operations nationwide, meaning the only active Cruise cars operate on “closed course training environments.”
Nov. 19: Cruise founder and CEO Kyle Vogt resigns to “spend more time with my family and explore some new ideas.” He tells employees in a letter, first acquired by Reuters, that the company “veered off course” under his leadership and that he takes “full responsibility for the situation Cruise is in today.”
“There are no excuses, and there is no sugarcoating what has happened. We need to double down on safety, transparency, and community engagement,” he writes.
Nov. 20: Co-founder and chief product officer Dan Kan also steps down.
Nov. 29: General Motors tells shareholders it will slash millions of dollars in funding from its Cruise subsidiary in 2024. CEO Mary Barra says Cruise must improve once the ongoing safety reviews are complete.
Dec. 1: The CPUC alleges that Cruise withheld information from investigators looking into the Oct. 2 accident. The robotaxi firm is ordered to appear at a Feb. 6 hearing to determine whether it misled regulators. The commission alleges that Cruise initially said its vehicle stopped on top of the pedestrian but didn’t mention it proceeded to drag her another 20 feet with her pinned underneath it. Because it took the company 15 days to release the additional footage showing that maneuver, as the CPUC alleges, it faces up to $1.5 million in fines.
Dec. 4: Barra says at a media event in Detroit that GM is conducting two external safety reviews of Cruise, which she expects to be completed early next year, at which point the company will determine how much it will invest in the troubled autonomous-vehicle maker. She says GM is “focused on righting the ship.”
Dec. 13: Nine Cruise executives leave the company “following an initial analysis of the Oct. 2 incident and Cruise’s response to it,” according to the robotaxi firm. The employees include “key leaders from the Legal, Government Affairs, and Commercial Operations, as well as Safety and Systems.” Reuters reports chief operating officer Gil West and chief legal officer Jeff Bleich are among those let go.
Dec. 14: Cruise announces it’s laying off 24% of its full-time employees. Mo Elshenawy, Cruise’s president and CTO, tells workers that the company will prioritize relaunching its self-driving taxi service “in one city to start,” but doesn’t say which one.
Dec. 19: The Giants confirm to The Examiner that Cruise’s patch will stay on the team’s uniforms moving forward.
Dec. 20: Waymo releases a study detailing why its technology is safer than human-driven vehicles. The study analyzes 7.1 million miles driven by Waymo vehicles in San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles, and compares the stats to a human benchmark. The company says its robotaxis were involved in injury crashes 6.8 times less often than human-driven vehicles. In San Francisco, that translates to nine fewer injury crashes every 1.76 million miles. Waymo officials claim the timing of their study’s release is unrelated to Cruise’s recent series of mishaps.
