Cruise launches its fully-driverless electric cars in Sunset District of San Francisco for testing!

 General Motors' Cruise is putting driverless cars or self-driving cars on the streets of San Francisco for testing for the first time. It is now a fully driverless car and it will self-drive on the streets of San Francisco. The update on it here! 

The driverless car of Cruise

General Motors' Cruise has been testing on self-driving or driverless cars for many years now. They initially tested them but with a human backup driver at the helm. But now, they are going to put the car on the streets of San Francisco alone and solo with no human backup. It will be put to test in the Sunset District which is a residential and commercial area on the west side of the city. 

Driverless car of Cruise [Source: Wired]

The robotic car or robocar of the company will for the first time in its history be on the most complex urban environment for the test. The company made the announcement on it on Wednesday 9 December 2020. These cars sense the environment and can drive safely with no human input. 

More on this new test in SF

The company revealed that five self-driving cars will be on the streets of the district for testing. The place has densely packed traffic with steep inclines and also the traditional fog. Hence, the robocar will have to manoeuvre all these issues while driving. The announcement was made during a conference call. The chief executive of the firm, Dan Ammann told the news. 

Self-driving autonomous cars of Cruise [Source: The Verge]

The company said that it is confident about the results. It was able to do so after five years of efforts and testing in the lab. There were 2 million autonomous miles covered by this car in SF. It is not the only company testing driverless cars. Its competitor is Waymo who had launched this driverless ride in Arizona earlier this year. The rides are not yet open for public use. Cruise spokesperson Milan Mehta said that it began the testing this November. It will then expand to other neighborhood places. And it aims to start an electric, fully driverless ride-hailing service in the future. 

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The permit of the company

The company has obtained permission for the whole city. But initially, the backup driver will be present in the car. This driver will be in the passenger seat initially. This driver cannot control anything of the car except an emergency brake to halt the vehicle. Slowly, it will remove this safety or backup driver as well but the time limit is not specified. There are around 40k deaths due to vehicles in the USA annually. The Silicon Valley companies are rushing to make the driverless car a reality due to its safety. These vehicular deaths can be brought down drastically. 

Ride-hailing services [Source: The NY Times]

Besides, the rides would get cheaper as the payment for the driver is removed. But there would be unemployment due to it. California has until now given permits to five companies for their driverless trials. These include Cruise, Waymo, Zoox, AutoX, and Nuro. Cruise is the only company with Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicles in its fleet, the other companies have gas-powered cars and SUVs.

Ethical and moral issues

Some other issues likely to crop up with driverless driving are: 

1. Who will take responsibility for car crashes if any? 

2. Unemployment and retrenchment

3. Hacking and malware issues. 

4. De-skilling of vehicle users. 

5. Capitalist growth and worsening.