An anonymous letter was sent to a California regulatory agency by someone claiming to be a Cruise employee. One of the main concerns of the employee was the fact that Cruise robotaxis malfunction frequently and are left stranded on the streets, often blocking traffic or emergency vehicles.
There is fear of admitting that we are not ready to launch to the public because of expectations from leadership and investors according to the letter. According to the results of a survey from over 2000 employees, safety is a top priority.
The California Public Utilities Commission is looking into the issues raised by the letter. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report on the investigation.
At the start of June, Cruise will be able to begin charging fares for self-guided rides in San Francisco after the company received a permit from the California Public Utilities Commission. Commercial operations for the cruise began three weeks ago.
According to the resolution to give Cruise the green light, the commission has the power to suspend or revocation the permit at any time if it finds unsafe behavior.
Cruise says it has a good relationship with regulators and that they communicate frequently. The company said it follows a variety of reporting requirements and provides additional information as needed
The employee's concerns, which were originally sent to theCPUC in May, came to light just a couple of weeks after more than half a dozen of Cruise's vehicles stopped on a street in San Francisco for close to two hours. The vehicles needed to be recovered through a combination of manual and remote help.
There are incidents where our San Francisco fleet of vehicles individually or in clusters enter a "VRE" or Vehicle Retrieval event, according to an employee who describes himself as a father and an employee working on safety critical systems who has been at the company.
A vehicle is often stranded in lanes where they are blocking traffic and blocking emergency vehicles when this happens. Sometimes it is possible to remotely assist the vehicle with pulling over, but sometimes it is not possible to remotely maneuver the vehicle outside of the lanes they are blocking until they are physically towed from their location.
Cruise employees use the company's internal safety reporting system to report any type of concern they have regarding safety, according to a Cruise employee. A risk assessment for the concern itself has not been completed, according to the author of the letter.
He suggests that because Cruise doesn't have a required turn around time for such tickets, the ticket will stay in triage indefinitely.
I don't know if my experience with our safety reporting system is representative of the majority of cases, but I think it's indicative of a very chaotic environment that allows this kind of thing to happen.
According to the letter, Cruise doesn't prioritize documenting core systemFunctionality, and that the company intentionally hides the results of investigations into collision involving Cruise vehicles and other sensitive, potentially damaging matters.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a special investigation into a crash involving a Cruise vehicle that resulted in minor injuries.
As an employee working on safety critical systems, the only reason I can think of for this type of information to be hidden from employees like me is for the purpose of optics and damage control.
The author of the letter is not sure if he is a Cruise employee, or not. The email address given in the letter went unanswered, and the agency has not yet been able to confirm his employment.
Drew Pusateri said that the safety record is tracked by multiple government agencies. It speaks for itself, and we're proud of it.
More information from Cruise has been added.
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