A shortened video
The ruling states that Cruise Senior Manager Jose Alvarado called the California Public Utilities Commission to report the pedestrian accident on Oct. 3, the day after it occurred. But Alvarado’s description of the incident said the Cruise vehicle immediately stopped upon impact with the pedestrian. He omitted the critical information about the pullover maneuver, which resulted in the pedestrian being dragged.
That omission, “misled the Commission regarding the extent and severity of the October 2, 2023 incident, as well as the ability of Cruise’s AV’s to operate safely after experiencing a collision,” the ruling stated.
In a Freedom of Information Act filed by the Free Press, documents from the California Department of Motor Vehicles show that on Oct. 3 the DMV was shown a video, provided by Cruise, from onboard vehicle cameras of the incident. The video ended at the hard stop when the pedestrian was struck. The department learned of the later movement by the vehicle from another government agency, the document said. It then requested the full video from Cruise, which it got on Oct. 13.
Similarly, Friday’s ruling said several regulators
A ‘misleading’ (and now missing) blog
On Oct. 24, the California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended Cruise from further testing and deploying its driverless taxi service cars in San Francisco, deeming them unsafe to the public. Cruise has been using modified self-driving Bolt vehicles in the robotaxi service it started operating in San Francisco in June 2022.
GM has owned Cruise since 2016 and invested some $8 billion into it over the years. Cruise had been operating in San Francisco, Phoenix and Austin, Texas. Since the accident, it has halted all operations and testing and recalled all of its 950 vehicles. GM has paused production at Factory Zero in Detroit and Hamtramck of what is to be the next generation Cruise vehicle — the Origin — a six-seater bus-like vehicle with no steering wheel or brake pedals.
The ruling noted that in an Oct. 24 blog by Cruise, the company asserted that “our team proactively shared information with the (Department of Motor Vehicles California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), including the full video, and have stayed in close contact with regulators to answer their questions.”
Not so, said the ruling.
“That statement is misleading in two respects: first Cruise claims to have ‘proactively shared information’ when, in fact, it withheld information from the Commission for 15 days, thus misleading the Commission,” the ruling asserts. “Second, by withholding information about the extent of the Cruise AV interaction with the pedestrian, Cruise misled the DMV and, in turn, the Commission into thinking that the original video shown and commented on accurately memorialized the full extent of the incident.”
Cruise’s blog page now indicates that the company removed that Oct. 24 blog stating it did so “out of respect to ongoing regulatory engagement,” and it said it is reviewing its response to the Oct. 2 accident.
The pedestrian, whose identity has not been revealed, remains in the hospital, but is in “good condition” as of Nov. 28, according to a Monday report by Forbes crediting a spokesperson from the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.
Contact Jamie L. LaReau: jlareau@free press.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.