The U.S. Justice Department is launching a probe into a horrific accident involving a General Motors self-driving car in San Francisco, which resulted in severe injuries to a pedestrian and caused setbacks for the company’s autonomous vehicle goals.

The report released on Thursday by the Justice Department revealed a new development in the ongoing crisis that started in October. This was when a robotaxi, owned by GM’s subsidiary Cruise, dragged a pedestrian approximately 20 feet (6 meters) after being hit by a human-driven vehicle in San Francisco.

The occurrence led to Cruise’s permit for running their driverless vehicles in California being revoked by regulators, leading to a shakeup of its management and a reduction in staff by 25%. This was a result of GM scaling back its goals in self-driving technology. Cruise’s failure to disclose important information about the October 2 incident has also sparked accusations of attempting to hide it, potentially resulting in a penalty of $1.5 million. However, Cruise has proposed a payment of $75,000 instead.

General Motors has not provided any information regarding the specifics of the inquiry conducted by the Justice Department or another one led by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. A spokesperson for the company stated that GM is working together with the authorities.

A report detailing the response to a pedestrian’s injury revealed new issues for GM in Detroit and Cruise in San Francisco.

The law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan’s report criticized Cruise’s management, which has been replaced due to “inadequate leadership, errors in decision-making, lack of coordination, and an adversarial attitude towards regulators.” However, the report also stated that Cruise initially believed they had presented California regulators with a video featuring a robotaxi named “Panini” hitting a pedestrian, but later realized that the scene was not visible due to internet streaming problems.

The report criticized Cruise for prioritizing their reputation over addressing the situation properly, despite management being aware that regulators had not viewed the full video of the incident.

According to the summary findings of the report, Cruise needs to take firm actions to resolve these problems in order to regain trust and credibility.

General Motors has recently implemented a fresh leadership team at Cruise and revised its objectives for a self-driving unit that was expected to revolutionize the transportation sector by running robotic ride-hailing services throughout the United States. Despite concerns from critics about the reliability of autonomous driving technology, GM had previously estimated that Cruise would generate $1 billion in revenue by 2025, which is ten times more than its current earnings during a period of significant investment that led to substantial financial losses.

In August of last year, Cruise overcame a major obstacle when it received approval from California regulators to launch its autonomous taxi service in San Francisco, even though city officials strongly objected. However, just a few weeks later in October, everything fell apart.

Source: wral.com