Cruise recalls robotaxi fleet to resolve federal safety probe

General Motors’ AV company, Cruise, has recalled its fleet of 1,194 self-driving cars to resolve long-standing trouble with unexpected braking. Cruise has shipped software updates to those vehicles that should mitigate the braking problems, and as such, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has closed its nearly two-year probe into the issue.

The recall and the conclusion of the probe takes one worry off Cruise’s plate at a time when the company is under great scrutiny. It is still under active federal investigation from the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission after one of its robotaxis struck a pedestrian late last fall. (The pedestrian had been hit by a human-driven car before the Cruise robotaxi ran over her.)

Cruise has gone through a lot of change since then. It lost its permits to operate in California, grounded its entire U.S. fleet, replaced its founder and a number of other leaders and, most recently, has abandoned its purpose-built autonomous vehicle, the Origin. In June, Cruise reached a settlement with California’s Public Utilities Commission in order to take one step closer to resuming its robotaxi service in the state.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened its probe into Cruise’s hard-braking problems in December 2022. Across the last two years, the regulator says it examined 7,632 hard-braking events, but only identified 10 crashes that Cruise vehicles “contributed to,” four of which involved a “vulnerable road user and resulted in an injury.”

The trouble appears to have happened when Cruise’s autonomous system inaccurately predicted the path of a car ahead of the robotaxi. Hard braking also occurred if other cars were too close to a Cruise AV’s sensors. Cruise’s software updates have improved its robotaxis’ perception, prediction and planning, according to NHTSA. In February, the regulator says, Cruise showed NHTSA that the rate of hard-braking events was “much lower than a human driver.”

This is not the first recall for Cruise’s AVs. In 2023, the company updated its autonomous software after one of its robotaxis crashed into a city bus in San Francisco. The year prior, Cruise recalled its robotaxis after one crashed while making an unprotected left turn.