Cruise Robotaxi Ready for Relaunch via Uber Partnership 

Key Takeaways

• Cruise is ready to relaunch after it suspended operations due to safety concerns last year.
• General Motors’ robotaxi service will be offered on Uber starting in 2025.
• Since Cruise’s suspension, rival Waymo has gained a significant headstart.

Ten months after it suspended operations following the revocation of its license in California, General Motors’ robotaxi service Cruise is gearing up for a comeback.

This time, however, the Waymo rival won’t go it alone; it is teaming up with Uber to offer driverless rides on its platform.

Uber Expands Driverless Rides

The new partnership, announced  on Thursday, Aug. 22, will see Cruise’s driverless Chevy Bolt offered as a ride option on Uber starting next year.

The agreement could be strategically beneficial for Cruise, giving it access to Uber’s large and established user base.

While the announcement didn’t state where the service will launch first, Uber already offers driverless rides in Phoenix courtesy of Waymo, Google’s autonomous vehicle division.

Since Cruise’s withdrawal last year, Waymo has cemented a strong lead in the nascent robotaxi market s

Overcoming Safety Concerns

Despite successfully rolling out the platform in Austin, Houston, Phoenix, and San Francisco, Cruise pulled its driverless vehicles off the road in October last year after California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) suspended its permit.

The decision came after a series of troubling incidents, including a pedestrian collision in San Francisco where a Cruise vehicle ran over a woman after another car had initially struck her. 

Safety concerns also prompted a probe by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which investigated incidents where Cruise vehicles reportedly failed to exercise proper caution around pedestrians and made sudden stops that led to rear-end collisions.

In a statement , Cruise said: “We paused operations of our fleet to focus on rebuilding trust with regulators and the communities we serve and to redesign our approach to safety.” 

Upon resuming supervised driving in June, the company said it had made “significant progress,” guided by new leadership, recommendations from third-party experts, and community feedback.

Playing Catchup With Waymo

As a consequence of its ten-month setback, Cruise has lost ground to Waymo, which has been operating without competition in the US since October.

In July, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai reported that Waymo has surpassed “well over” 50,000 weekly paid rides. 

The platform is currently available in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco.

A pilot is currently running in Austin ahead of a full launch planned for later this year. As it looks to expand the service further, Alphabet has committed to investing an additional $5 billion into Waymo.

Aside from Cruise, another major threat to Waymo’s dominance could come from Tesla. The electric vehicle company initially planned to launch its robotaxi service in August but has since delayed the launch until October.

About the Author

James Morales

Although his background is in crypto and FinTech news, these days, James likes to roam across CCN’s editorial breadth, focusing mostly on digital technology. Having always been fascinated by the latest innovations, he uses his platform as a journalist to explore how new technologies work, why they matter and how they might shape our future.

See more

[email protected] LinkedIn Twitter