Cruise, the driverless-taxi unit majority owned by General Motors, spent 2023 expanding paid robotaxi service across San Francisco. On October 2, 2023, one of its driverless cars struck a pedestrian who had first been hit by a human-driven car and thrown into its path; the Cruise vehicle then pulled over with the person still pinned underneath and dragged her about twenty feet. The incident, and what regulators learned about it afterward, ended Cruise’s driverless operations in California.
On October 24, 2023, the California Department of Motor Vehicles issued a public statement suspending Cruise’s autonomous vehicle deployment and driverless testing permits, effective immediately. The DMV cited four sections of its regulations, including a determination that “the manufacturer’s vehicles are not safe for the public’s operation” and that “the manufacturer has misrepresented any information related to safety.” Reporting and later investigations established that Cruise had not initially shown regulators the full video of the car dragging the pedestrian - the misrepresentation the DMV’s grounds pointed at.
The suspension left Cruise able to test only with a human safety driver, and the company quickly paused all driverless operations nationwide. The fallout was severe: Cruise’s CEO and co-founder resigned, the company laid off roughly a quarter of its staff, and GM eventually folded what remained of Cruise into its own engineering organization, abandoning the standalone robotaxi business.
Why business readers should care: the permits were not pulled over the accident alone but over how the company handled disclosure to its regulator. In a safety-critical, license-dependent business, the relationship with the regulator is itself an asset, and being seen to withhold evidence can cost more than the underlying incident.