Cruise, Paid Ride Service With Autonomous Vehicles Officially Operates In California

Cruise, became the first autonomous taxi to operate in California. (photo; photo file)

JAKARTA - General Motors Co's self-driving car subsidiaries Cruise and Alphabet Inc on Thursday, September 30, became the first companies to receive an autonomous vehicle license to offer rides to passengers in California.

Cruise has obtained permission from the California Department of Motor Vehicles to offer passengers driverless rides at night in parts of San Francisco, and Waymo has won permission from regulators to deploy autonomous vehicles with a safe driver behind the wheel.

The DMV said it would allow commercial services for the company, but said it needed to get another permit from the California Public Utilities Commission to start billing passengers en route.

Another company, Nuro, last year received a self-driving deployment permit in California, but that was for freight forwarding, not passenger travel.

California's DMV said the new permit would allow Cruise to operate its vehicles "within certain parts of San Francisco" between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. at a maximum speed limit of 30 miles per hour.

"Waymo that has a safety driver behind the wheel is approved to operate on public roads in parts of the San Francisco and San Mateo areas with a speed limit of no more than 65 mph," the DMV said.

Both companies have stepped up testing in San Francisco. Cruise has been using GM's Bolt EV electric vehicle and Waymo running Jaguar's all-electric Jaguar I-PACE SUV.

Waymo began public testing in San Francisco in August, with a backup driver behind the wheel. Waymo has provided lauded paid, driverless rides through its app in limited suburban areas of Arizona.

Waymo tweeted Thursday that "its new license will help us build on our efforts to bring our AV technology to more CA residents."

Self-driving startups are rushing to commercialize expensive technology and raise fresh funds, having missed an earlier deadline for deployment, hampered by technological hurdles.

Cruise, which also counts Softbank and Honda as investors, earlier this year raised $2.75 billion - recently from investors like Walmart Inc while Waymo has raised $2.5 billion this year.

Reuters reported in May that Cruise and Waymo earlier this year applied for approval from the California DMV to deploy their self-driving vehicles in San Francisco, setting the stage for the biggest test of the technology in a dense urban environment.