The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has given Cruise the green light to publicly operate robotaxis without a safety driver behind the wheel.
On Thursday, the company backed by General Motors (GM) received the necessary permit to offer driverless rides, but it comes with a number of restrictions.
The driverless robotaxis can only operate at night between the hours of 10:00pm and 6:00am at a maximum speed of 30mph (48km/h). The robotaxis can also only operate in certain parts of San Francisco.
News of the permit approval was first shared on Twitter by Kyle Vogt, Co-Founder, President & CTO at Cruise.
Boom! Today @Cruise got the permit to publicly operate *driverless* robo-taxis from the California DMV. Stay tuned…
Thanks @CA_DMV @BernardSoriano
— Kyle Vogt (@kvogt) September 30, 2021
This is the first step in a two part process before the company can officially begin charging customers for autonomous taxi rides.
Related: Waymo and Cruise apply to begin autonomous taxi service in San Francisco
For that Cruise still requires approval from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), a process which has no current timeline to completion.
Waymo has also received a similar permit, but are still required to have a safety driver behind the wheel, according to a report from Reuters.
