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Payne: Hailing a driverless Cruise robotaxi in the streets of San Francisco
Posted by Talbot Payne on November 14, 2022
San Francisco — Like nocturnal animals, autonomous Cruise Chevy Bolt EVs start turning up on San Francisco’s streets late at night. They even look like racoons with their masked headlights and ear-like LIDAR arrays sticking out the roof. But these raccoons aren’t foraging for food, they are looking for riders.
Like me.
I summoned one using Cruise’s smartphone app and it scurried up to me curbside at Hotel Kabuki in the Japantown neighborhood. The Bolt is a cute creature, painted white and black with a red sash of paint around its hips. It even had a name: Firefly. Others in Cruise’s 80-car fleet have names like Willow, Fern, Rigatoni, Scampi, Crepe, Samosa, Tostada and Pride. The app unlocked the door, and my San Francisco friend, Elan, and I slid into the roomy back seat.
The robotaxi’s front seat was off limits, a plastic shield separating us from the driver’s seat. But no one was at the wheel. After confirming our seatbelts were fastened on the seat-back screen, we tapped START — and Firefly was off into the night.
The steering wheel spun this way and that as we negotiated the Golden City’s dark, hilly streets on the way to our destination: scenic Twin Peaks in the Noe Valley neighborhood near Elan’s home.
General Motors bought the Cruise ride-share service in 2016, and this June it became the first service licensed to charge fares to the public in driverless cars in a major American city. It follows Waymo’s entry into Tempe — the first driverless service in a metropolitan area — with headless Chrysler Pacifica robotaxis, which I have hailed as well.
In fact, I’ve ridden in just about every type of self-driving car in the last eight years, from so-called Level 2 (driver attention required) systems like Tesla’s Autopilot and GM’s Super Cruise to Level 3 (driver in car) Uber Volvo robotaxis to Level 4 (no driver) autonomous vehicles like the Skynet Marshmallow Bumper Bot — as The Oatmeal memorably coined Google’s first Level 4 prototype.
It is an industry still in its infancy, as I would find this night when the Cruise suddenly aborted its mission due to rain. But robot cars have made big strides in recent years.
In fact, it feels like I have come full circle from my first autonomous ride in 2014 in a Lexus RX on Google’s campus — the autonomous pioneer — south of here. At that time, Google’s Lexus was limited to campus roads and required the attention of two engineers in the front seats. The Bumper Bot was driverless — but limited to a rooftop parking lot. In Pittsburgh in 2017, Uber’s autonomous Volvo required two drivers in front. Then in suburban Phoenix in 2018, the industry went into the ditch when an autonomous Uber Volvo killed a pedestrian despite having a driver behind the wheel.
After a reset, Waymo successfully deployed headless taxis in Tempe last year, and here I was back in the Bay Area realizing the industry’s vision: a routine, driverless ride in a big city. We weren’t alone. We saw vehicles from other autonomous services — Zoox and Waymo are testing Jaguar iPaces here — in addition to other Cruise Bolts.
Cruise is still walking before it can run, though.
Cruise’s service is limited to city neighborhoods from 10 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. It avoids central city streets and takes advantage of autonomous vehicles’ superior vision at night, when sun glare won’t blind sensors. Still, the Bolt is hardly dependent on cameras alone, with an array of 40 sensors — including LIDAR and radar. The hardware augments Cruise software (the trunk is inaccessible and filled with computer hardware) that has extensively mapped the streets it services.
The wee hours also serve a need: reducing accidents delivering customers home at night.
“Getting around at night is quantifiably more dangerous than during the day — 50% of road fatalities occur at night. Whether it’s finding it hard to see at night, falling asleep at the wheel, having that glass of wine or two at dinner, or concerns about personal safety,” says Cruise’s website. “All of this makes nighttime transportation an ideal fit for vehicles with driving capabilities that avoid common human fallibility.”
Elan prefers to call a Cruise after a few drinks or when he’s tired.
His female pals also feel safer (many will give Uber/Lyft drivers a nearby address — not their actual address — when they are taken home) without the risk of riding with strangers. Cruise gets them home safely, at the speed limit, without texting and driving, in a cabin that is always clean and quiet.
That quiet, said Elan, can be off-putting. He says the biggest advance since Cruise debuted in June is an audio option so you can play everything from pop music to jazz to news. We selected the “’90s, 2000s & Today” channel (Taylor Swift cooing “Anti-Hero”) and drifted into conversation — ignoring the car, which confidently went about its task.
Indeed, the Bolt only hiccupped once on our 27-minute ride to Twin Peaks — applying the brakes for no apparent reason before pressing on. While following the speed limit and good-driving habits, it did tend to run in the left-hand lane on four-lane streets — perhaps because right-lanes tend to be slow (think parallel parking, drop-offs) along the city’s townhouse-lined streets.
Elan pointed out landmarks in his neighborhood — the “Grateful Dead house” where Jerry Garcia lived early in his career, the home used for “Mrs. Doubtfire” — and we played Cruise’s Trivia game. Sample question:
Which of these SF beaches is clothing optional? Ocean Beach, Crissy Field East Beach, Baker Beah, China Beach
Answer: Baker Beach
In short, we forgot about the car, so unremarkable was its behavior. No high-G turns. No honking. That reliability is key as the Bolt is the gateway to Cruise’s ultimate goal: deploying the Cruise Origin pod next year. Made at GM’s Hamtramck facility, Origin will be a modern trolley on four wheels — gathering customers who hop in and out with not even a steering wheel to distract them.
At Twin Peaks, we decided to head back to my hotel rather than get out, see the city lights, then wait for another Cruise. With its small fleet, waits can be long for Cruises in this beta phase.
The return trip would be different.
After a few minutes, rain began to fall. The Bolt’s wipers came on automatically, but eventually a message popped up on the Cruise screen:
Pulling over to a safe stop. Something happened on your trip. A support specialist will explain what to do next.
The ride ended at a street corner next to a line of parked cars. A Cruise staffer’s voice came over the car’s speaker system to explain that rain had terminated the ride. We could wait for a specialist to arrive who would take us to our destination — or we could get out and hail an Uber. Unsure of how long it would take for a specialist to arrive (we imagined dozens of Cruises pulling over around the city), we chose Uber.
Cruise confirmed to me the next day that Cruise service stops when rain or fog is detected. “Out of an abundance of caution,” said communications chief Anna Haase. “Safety is our first priority.”
Baby steps. Expect such precautions to disappear in coming months as Cruise rides — and operating hours — expand. The Bolts return to a nest on California street to get recharged and serviced, and the company is building a massive recharging/service facility in the city’s South of Market neighborhood.
Customers like Elan — this was his first canceled ride due to weather — are accepting of inconveniences. They are beta testers who’ve signed up for the experience. Besides, the price is right: Elan said Cruise fares are generally 20% less than Uber and Lyft. There are tens of thousands more on Cruise’s waitlist eager to join.
“Our approach has been to start small and price competitively so we can offer the best experience possible. We’ve been gradually expanding our service and rider community,” said Haase.
Expect the service to really hit its stride when Cruise Origin is introduced. In the meantime, Cruise will introduce revenue-generating, driverless car service to Austin, Texas, and to Phoenix by year’s end.
Keep an eye peeled for nocturnal animals with four wheels.
Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or Twitter @HenryEPayne.