While Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk and others working on autonomous vehicles have suggested that robo-taxis and driverless cars are around the corner, recent developments say otherwise.
Cruise has big ambitions to eventually urn its driverless car fleet into a revenue-generating robo-taxi service across the U.S. and its parent GM has forecast that Cruise could reach $50 billion in revenue by 2030. Seemingly overnight, San Franciscans over the last year began to see autonomous vehicles across city streets. Those vehicles originally featured a human safety drivers, but companies ditched that security to prove that their cars were safe without a human on board, and to move forward on its revenue generation plan.
“They weren’t as ready as they wanted people to believe,” he added. “They should operate only with safety drivers, and need to have a serious investigation with independent oversight.” He said Cruise’s next moves will be of vital importance in showing how the company deals with safety concerns. Chase also pointed out that on a federal level, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration needs to put a laser focus on the information provided by Cruise in its petition for exemptions from Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. “Industry transparency and accountability are essential,” she said in an email.