Cruise Issues OTA Recall For 300 Robotaxis Following Collision with Bus

General Motors’ Cruise has issued an over-the-air (OTA) recall of 300 robotaxis following a minor collision with a municipal bus in San Francisco. According to Cruise, the robotaxi had incorrectly predicted the movement of the bus as it left a bus stop on March 23, resulting in a low-speed collision.

While no one was injured, the company has taken steps to rectify the problem and prevent similar incidents from happening in the future by issuing an OTA recall.

Cruise has described the incident as a “fender-bender,” but the recall is a necessary step to be transparent with the public and to address the issue of articulated buses that behave differently than standard buses in certain situations.

“We quickly determined the bus’s behavior was reasonable and predictable. It pulled out into a lane of traffic from a bus stop and then came to a stop. Although our car did brake in response, it applied the brakes too late and rear-ended the bus at about 10 mph. We identified the root cause, which was a unique error related to predicting the movement of articulated vehicles (i.e. vehicles with two sections connected by a flexible joint, allowing them to bend in the middle) like the bus involved in this incident,” Cruise said on Friday.

The company stated that the software update was completed on March 25th, and that no other accidents had occurred due to this specific issue.

“Fender benders like this rarely happen to our AVs, but this incident was unique. We do not expect our vehicles to run into the back of a city bus under any conditions, so even a single incident like this was worthy of immediate and careful study,” Cruise co-founder and CEO Kyle Vogt said.