An accident. GM’s Cruise had withheld data. The permit was withdrawn. Now they want to settle the case with a payment.
The GM robotaxi unit Cruise is offering to pay $75,000 to settle an investigation by California regulators into an accident in which details of a pedestrian accident involving a self-driving car were not disclosed. In December, the California Public Utilities Commission ordered Cruise to attend a hearing on February 6, accusing the company of misleading the commission by omitting the severity of the accident and making misleading public comments about its interactions with the agency have.
Cruise, that nine managers, including the COO and chief legal and policy officer, in connection with the accident in October, requested a postponement of the hearing and sought alternative dispute resolution. The company said in a filing Friday that the investigation is expected to be completed before Feb. 6 and the results will be made public. Cruise also offered to increase collision reporting at the commission as part of his settlement offer.
Cruise emphasized his commitment to significant process improvements in interactions with regulators, as well as increased transparency, collaboration and rebuilding regulatory trust. After the accident in October, the company withdrew all of its vehicles from self-driving testing in the United States. The CEO and co-founder resigned in November, and in December Cruise announced it would lay off 24% of its workforce.
The incident on October 2nd in which a pedestrian being struck by another vehicle and thrown in front of a self-driving cruise car resulted in the suspension of test licenses and the halt of all testing in the United States. The California Department of Transportation said in December that a Cruise employee called a commission analyst the day after the accident and informed her of the collision, but did not mention that the Cruise vehicle had performed the overtaking maneuver, causing the pedestrian to gain additional feet at low speed was drawn.
GM said in November it would cut costs at Cruise, which lost more than $700 million in the third quarter and more than $8 billion since 2016. In October, the California Department of Transportation ordered Cruise to remove its driverless cars from the state’s roads because they posed a danger to the public and the company misrepresented safety. That same month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into pedestrian risks at Cruise.