Cruise LLC was an American self-driving car company that became a subsidiary of General Motors, headquartered in San Francisco, California.

[13] After it successfully graduated from Y Combinator, a startup accelerator that mentors up-and-coming entrepreneurs, Cruise was acquired by General Motors in March 2016.

[11] In a September 2016 interview with Darrell Etherington at the San Francisco TechCrunch Disrupt conference, Vogt confirmed that the company had over 100 employees.

[7] Since becoming part of General Motors in March 2016,[20] Cruise has been working on developing software and hardware to make fully autonomous vehicles using modified Chevrolet Bolts.

In April 2017, GM announced plans to invest $14 million to expand Cruise operations in California, adding an estimated 1,163 full-time employees by 2021.

[29] In September 2021, Cruise received a permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles to provide driverless taxi rides in the state.

[38] In September 2022, the company announced it would expand its service to Phoenix, Arizona, and Austin, Texas, within three months, with the goal of adding $1 billion in revenue by 2025.

The article noted Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt said a small portion of the company's fleet offered driverless rides 24 hours a day across the entire city of San Francisco.

[43] Outside of California, the voluntary nationwide scope expansion suspended services in Arizona (Phoenix), Texas (Austin, Dallas, and Houston), and Florida (Miami).

[63] In September 2021, Honda started testing program toward launch of Level 4 mobility service Business in Japan, using the G3 Cruise AV.

[75] In June 2021, Cruise announced it had secured a $5 billion line of credit from General Motors to assist with commercialization and that it had begun assembly of 100 pre-production Origin vehicles for validation testing.

[77] The State of California issued testing permits to Cruise in June 2021, allowing the company to provide limited revenue taxi service without human drivers.

[84] Cruise received a permit from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) in June 2022, allowing them to operate revenue taxi services in San Francisco using cars without a human driver during limited hours in certain areas of the city.

[36] Cruise and Waymo later submitted applications to the CPUC, seeking to expand the commercial operating hours for their robotaxi services in San Francisco.

In January 2023, the city of San Francisco wrote to the CPUC, requesting that the applications be denied: "in the months since the Initial Approval [of autonomous taxi services in June 2022], Cruise AVs have made unplanned and unexpected stops in travel lanes, where they obstruct traffic and transit service, and intruding into active emergency response scenes, including fire suppression scenes, creating additional hazardous conditions.

"[85][86] Although draft resolutions approving the expansion petitions were posted by the CPUC in May 2023,[87] the hearing was delayed from June 29 to July 13, pending further review.

[89][90] Cruise released a statement in response: "Intentionally obstructing vehicles gets in the way of [efforts to provide free rides, meal deliveries, and retrieve food waste] and risks creating traffic congestion for local residents.

[92] At that hearing, the CPUC approved the scope expansion by a 3–1 vote, allowing both Cruise and Waymo to offer robotic taxi services at all hours throughout San Francisco.

The Cruise AV had stopped and yielded to the fire truck, but was unable to pull to the right to clear the oncoming lane because of parked cars.

San Francisco city officials filed a report to the CPUC, stating that "this incident slowed SFFD response to a fire that resulted in property damage and personal injuries.

"[101] In June 2023, a video was taken of a Cruise car appearing to block police and fire services from responding to a mass shooting in San Francisco.

[102] The San Francisco Fire Department reported there had been 39 incidents between January and June 2023 where Cruise and Waymo robotaxis had blocked first responders.

[103] In August 2023, a San Francisco firetruck collided with a Cruise car while responding to an emergency call with lights and sirens active.

[106] On June 3, 2022, a Cruise AV taxi carrying three backseat passengers collided with a Toyota Prius after making an unprotected left turn.

[107] On June 29, 2022, nearly twenty Cruise AVs blocked traffic for two hours by clustering at the intersection of Gough and Fulton in San Francisco.

[110] Additional documented occurrences of immobilized Cruise vehicles in 2022 include May 18 (fleet-wide communications loss), June 21 (Tenderloin),[110] and September 22 (two incidents; one near Sacramento and Leavenworth, the other near Geary and Franklin).

[113] In March 2023, two Cruise AVs operating without passengers drove through a blocked-off intersection in San Francisco, and became entangled with fallen Muni trolleybus power lines.

[116] Vogt confirmed that its vehicles made a call for remote assistance "2–4% of the time on average, in complex urban environments", but clarified that "of those, many are resolved by the AV itself before the human even looks at things".

[120] In August 2023, a Cruise AV starting to proceed through an intersection at 1.4 mph (2.3 km/h) on a green light struck a pedestrian, who subsequently was transported by ambulance after complaining of knee pain.

[125][126] The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened preliminary investigation PE22-014 on December 12, 2022, citing incidents in which the vehicles may have engaged "in inappropriately hard braking or [became] immobilized".