Cruise driverless taxi service launches in SF

It’s a big day for Cruise, the General Motors-backed autonomous vehicle company: Its driverless cars are open to the public in San Francisco.

Though there are plenty of limitations.

The first public rides in the modified Chevy Bolt EV Cruise vehicles actually happened last week, as seen in this video:

But those riders were all hand-picked members of the public chosen by Cruise employees. Cruise employees have been testing out the self-driving car service during the pandemic, as city residents have noticed, with the cars driving around often. A few months ago, Cruise co-founder Kyle Vogt hailed the company’s first truly driverless ride, in which nobody was in the front seat, not even a safety driver.

As of Tuesday, Cruise is opening a waitlist that anyone can sign up for, but you have to list what SF neighborhood you live in and what times of day you’re likely to use the service.

A Cruise spokesperson explained that once the real first public rides get going, they will only be for trips between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m., and mostly in the west side of the city. Traffic and business is much calmer during those times and on that side of SF.

Driverless, but not everywhere.
Credit: Cruise

The taxi rides will also be free, since Cruise doesn’t have its California Public Utilities Commission permit yet. It does have an AV permit through the California DMV, so it can operate on public roads without a driver.

The Cruise Rider Community program will operate like Alphabet-owned Waymo One, with an app for users to order a car (and eventually pay for rides). Waymo’s autonomous car service launched in Arizona in December 2018.

Even with all the caveats, Cruise is technically the first AV company to offer driverless taxi rides to San Franciscans. Waymo One has a similar program that launched in the city last year, but with a safety driver up front.