GM set to deploy fully driverless cars in San Francisco

SAN RAMON, Calif. — General Motors’ self-driving car company is sending vehicles without anybody behind the wheel in San Francisco as it navigates its way toward launching a robotic taxi service that would compete against U be rand Ly ft in the hometown of the leading ride-hailing services.

The move announced Wednesday by GM-owned Cruise come two months after the company received California’s permission to fully driverless cars in the state.

Like dozens of other companies testing the robotic technology, Cruise’s self-driving cars have been allowed on California public streets for several years with humans poised behind the wheel to take over in an emergency. Now, Cruise is confident enough to send out its self-driving cars without that safety net, although they will still be monitored by humans from remote locations instead of inside the vehicle.

“We believe self-driving has the potential to upend transportation,” Cruise CEO Dan Amman said Wednesday.

California regulators also recently approved new rules allowing ride-hailing services to pick up passen-gers in self-driving cars, but Cruise isn’t going down that road yet. Instead, Am mann pledged the company will move cautiously while dispatching up to five fully driverless cars into parts of San Francisco initially. Cruise’s employees most likely will be the only passengers initially riding in the fully driver less cars, just as they were when the company was testing the vehicles with a human backup behind the wheel.

Amman declined to provide a timeline when asked if Cruise planned to use its driverless cars in ride-hailing service within San Francisco next year. But he said Cruise remains on a clear path toward “a commercial product that everyone can use.”