General Motors autonomous subsidiary Cruise has announced it’s gone driverless in San Francisco.
The company revealed its plan Wednesday to test fully driverless vehicles on public roads, saying "our zero emission cars are ready to drive on their own." Cruise’s first ride without someone behind the wheel was in the city’s Sunset District, coming shortly after the California Department of Motor Vehicles granted the company a permit to "remove the human backup drivers."
A video of the inaugural ride shows a person in the passenger seat.
In a call with reporters, CEO Dan Ammann said the move was "a humble step" towards a commercial service.
According to TechCrunch, the DMV permit allows Cruise to test five driverless vehicles on specified streets in San Francisco, of which the locations have not been publicized. The company has also reportedly gotten permission from the California Public Utilities Commission to transport passengers in autonomous vehicles, something that’s prevented other companies like Cruise from doing so previously.
The company said it has been testing vehicles for about five years, or an estimated two million miles, in its hometown of San Francisco.
While others are operating in similar fashion in other parts of the world - notably Waymo’s no-driver paid passenger rides in Arizona - this is the first vehicle of its kind in California.
Driver-free rides for passengers are not expected until 2022 at the earliest, according to analysts.
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