WASHINGTON, April 7 (Reuters) – Cruise LLC, the robotaxi unit of General Motors, is removing automated driving software from 300 vehicles after one of its cars crashed into the back of a San Francisco bus.
The March 23 collision was blamed on a software bug in a Cruise automated vehicle (AV) that incorrectly predicted the movement of a San Francisco Municipal Transit Authority articulated bus, Cruise said Friday. The accident caused moderate damage to the Cruise, but there were no injuries.
Cruise said in a filing with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on Friday that the software was updated on March 25 to address concerns that the system “may inaccurately predict the movement of articulated vehicles, such as buses.” and truck trailers.
Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt explained in a blog post that “accidents like these rarely happen to our vehicles, but this incident was unique.” “We do not expect our vehicles to rear-end a city bus under any conditions, so even a single incident like this was worthy of immediate and careful study.”
In a separate filing with California, Cruise said the vehicle was traveling on Haight Street when a bus stopped in front of it and the Cruise hit its rear bumper.
Vogt said: “The behavior of the bus was reasonable and predictable. It pulled out into a lane of traffic at a bus stop and then stopped. Although our car braked in response, it did so too late and rear-ended the bus about 15 km/h”.
The autonomous vehicle’s (AV) view of the front section of the bus was completely blocked as the bus pulled in front of him.
“Because the VA had previously seen the front section and knew that the bus could bend, it predicted that the bus would move as connected sections and that the rear section would follow the predicted path of the front section,” Vogt explained, adding that it was the only accident of this type that the company had suffered.
Cruise said that after the update he determined that the accident would not be repeated.
In September, Cruise reported that it had removed and updated the software of 80 self-driving vehicles following a June crash in San Francisco that injured two people.
Last year, NHTSA said the software could “incorrectly predict” the path of an oncoming vehicle.
In December, NHTSA opened a formal investigation into the safety of the Cruise autonomous-driving system after receiving reports of incidents in which Cruise autonomous vehicles “could improperly brake harshly or become immobilized.” (Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing in Spanish by Ricardo Figueroa)
Source: Ambito
