DETROIT– US auto safety regulators have completed one of two investigations into the performance of vehicles from General Motors’ Cruise autonomous vehicle division after the company agreed to a recall.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says documents posted on its website on Thursday that the investigation began in December 2022 after the agency received reports of inappropriate hard braking and complete stops by Cruise vehicles.
The agency said it analyzed 7,632 reports of harsh braking in the nearly two-year investigation and found 10 crashes with four injuries. There were no crashes related to improper stopping.
On August 9 of this year, Cruise agreed to recall all 1,194 robotaxis for unexpected braking and said the problem would be fixed with a software update. The agency said in documents that the updates reduced the risk of unexpected braking with improvements in perception, prediction and planning.
“Given the recall action undertaken by Cruise and NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) analysis of available data, including data presented by Cruise demonstrating a reduction in harsh braking incidents following the software updates, ODI is closing this preliminary evaluation,” the agency wrote.
“We are committed to building trust and increasing transparency around autonomous vehicle technology, and look forward to our continued collaboration with NHTSA to achieve that goal,” Cruise said in a statement.
NHTSA is still investigating reports that Cruise vehicles to infringe upon pedestrians who are on or entering the road, including zebra crossings.
The Problem Company 950 of its vehicles recalled immediately software update in november after one of them dragged a pedestrian to the side of a San Francisco street in early October.
The October 2 crash prompted Cruise suspend driverless operations nationwide after California regulators found their cars posed a threat to public safety. The state’s Department of Motor Vehicles the license revoked for Cruise, which transported passengers without human drivers throughout San Francisco.
In the crash, another vehicle with a person behind the wheel struck a pedestrian, throwing the person into the path of a Cruise autonomous vehicle. The Cruise initially stopped, but struck the person anyway. It then pulled to the right to get out of traffic, pulling the person forward about 20 feet (six meters). The pedestrian was pinned under one of the Cruise vehicle’s tires and was seriously injured.
The crash caused a management change at Cruise including replacement of the CEO.