• Cruise robotaxis will return to public roads
  • Uber will use Cruise robotaxis in its fleet next year
  • Uber canceled its robotaxi service and sold its self-driving division

General Motors-backed self-driving technology company Cruise is making steady progress in getting its fleet of robotaxis back in operation after they were grounded last fall following an incident with a pedestrian in San Francisco.

Testing of the Chevrolet Bolt EV-based robotaxis resumed in May in Phoenix, albeit with a safety driver required behind the wheel at all times. The supervised testing has since expanded to Dallas and Houston.

Getting the robotaxi service back in operation without the safety driver will be a much bigger hurdle, but Cruise has found some success. The NHTSA on Thursday closed an investigation into hard braking events after Cruise agreed to a recall. The company will issue a software fix to mitigate the braking issues on roughly 1,200 robotaxis involved in the recall.

A separate investigation to determine whether Cruise is making sufficient effort to safeguard pedestrians is still open. The investigation resulted from the accident in San Francisco, in which a female pedestrian was thrown into the path of a Cruise robotaxi after she was involved in a hit-and-run with a vehicle in the lane adjacent to the robotaxi.

Cruise's robotaxi braked to avoid the impact but still came into contact with the pedestrian. Following an initial stop, the robotaxi then continued for another 20 feet in an attempt to pull over, which Cruise said was done to avoid further road safety issues. However, the maneuver resulted in the robotaxi dragging the pedestrian. California's DMV pulled Cruise's license following the accident.

Despite the second investigation still being open, Cruise has gone ahead with establishing a partnership with Uber that will lead to Cruise robotaxis being made available in Uber's fleet starting next year. No locations were mentioned during Thursday's announcement of the partnership.

Uber originally planned to develop its own robotaxi service but canceled the project and sold its self-driving division to Aurora in 2020. In addition to the high costs of developing the technology, Uber was also set back when one of its robotaxi prototypes hit and killed a pedestrian in Tempe in 2018. A safety driver was behind the wheel at the time and last year pleaded guilty to endangerment.

One of the most successful companies for robotaxis is Alphabet's Waymo. CNBC reported on Thursday that Waymo via its Waymo One service is already delivering 100,000 paid robotaxi rides per week in cities where it operates—currently San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles.