General Motors (NYSE:GM)
After an accident between one of its autonomous cars and a San Francisco bus, Cruise LLC, a division of General Motors (NYSE:GM), is recalling the automated driving software in 300 vehicles.
Cruise claimed on Friday that the AV’s software erroneously anticipated the path of an articulated San Francisco Municipal Transit Authority bus, leading to the incident on March 23. The Cruise had minor damage, but nobody was hurt in the collision.
Concerns that the technology “may inaccurately predict the movement of articulated vehicles like buses and tractor trailers” led to an upgrade on March 25, according to a file Cruise made with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on Friday.
Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt remarked in a blog post, “Fender benders like this rarely happen to our AVs, but this incident was unique.” Even though it is very unlikely that one of our cars would ever crash into the rear of a city bus, it was important to investigate this occurrence thoroughly.
According to a second California petition by Cruise, the accident occurred as the car was driving down Haight Street and collided with the back bumper of a halted bus.
According to Vogt, the bus acted in a reasonable and foreseen manner. It left the bus stop and stopped in the middle of the road. Our automobile responded by applying the brakes, but it was too late, and we crashed into the back of the bus while doing around 10 miles per hour.
As the bus moved out in front of the AV, it completely obstructed the AV’s vision of the front of the bus.
Vogt noted that this was the only accident of its kind that the company had ever seen: “Since the AV had previously seen the front section and recognized that the bus could bend, it predicted that the bus would move as connected sections with the rear section following the predicted path of the front section.”
Cruise said that it has confirmed the issue will not happen again after the upgrade.
After an incident in San Francisco in June left two people wounded, Cruise said in September that it recalled and upgraded software in 80 self-driving cars.
Last year, NHTSA warned that the program might “incorrectly predict” the route of an approaching car.
According to concerns received by NHTSA in December, self-driving Cruise cars “may engage in inappropriately hard braking or become immobilized.” This prompted NHTSA to launch an official safety investigation into the technology.
Featured Image: Freepik
