GM’s Cruise looks to start charging for robotaxi rides next year, Bloomberg News reports

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(Reuters) – General Motors’ self-driving technology unit, Cruise, aims to return to running fully autonomous rides later this year and charge fares by early 2025, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.

San Francisco, California-based Cruise has been working to recover from a setback caused by an accident last year, in which one of its robotaxis struck a pedestrian and dragged her 20 feet (6 meters).

The company resumed operations in the U.S. with a small fleet of human-driven vehicles in Phoenix, Arizona in April, but its authority to provide passenger service in autonomous vehicles in California remains suspended.

According to analysts and industry experts, the race to develop autonomous driving systems and robotaxis will be arduous, expensive and take years as the technology faces engineering and regulatory hurdles.

“Our continued focus is on rebuilding trust with regulators and improving AV (autonomous vehicle) performance with supervised autonomous testing underway in Phoenix, Dallas and Houston,” a spokesperson for Cruise said in a statement.

“Safety remains our guiding principle for expanding into driverless, we do not have a timeline to share right now.”

Cruise had said earlier this week it would focus on developing a next-generation Chevrolet Bolt car instead of a planned Origin vehicle that would not have a steering wheel or pedals for humans to control.

The company has been facing a number of investigations, including by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission — after last year’s accident.

(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)