GM’s Cruise Resumes Houston Robotaxi Testing After $850m Pledge to Improve It

General Motors' Cruise will see its return to testing its robotaxi services in Houston, Texas, after the company's recent suspension of its operations in a new update. However, it would not be a fully autonomous operation for Cruise, as this time, it will be supervised driving, says the company, which means that a human driver would be behind the wheel for the time being.

This follows the company's recent pledge to pour in a new $850 million investment to improve its technology and services.

GM's Cruise Resumes Houston Robotaxi Testing

In the latest update on Cruise's previous press release about its resumption of services, the company announced its return to Houston as part of its robotaxi testing operations. As of this writing, Cruise has resumed its operations with manual driving, meaning that it is running with human drivers in full control of the vehicles in Phoenix, Arizona, and Houston and Dallas, Texas.

The company said that it will soon resume supervised driving for its robotaxi operations in Phoenix and Dallas. This would mean that its autonomous driving tech would take the wheel, with a human driver on board.

It has not yet been revealed when Cruise will resume its supervised driving and fully autonomous rides, but that is underway.

$850m Pledge to Improve Cruise

This latest resumption of Cruise's Houston operations was done after General Motors pledged a new $850 million budget for the subsidiary company, according to The Verge. The announcement was made at Deutsche Bank's Global Auto Industry Conference held in New York. GM's CFO Paul Jacobson announced that this was for Cruise's operational costs amidst its return.

General Motors' Cruise

Back in October 2023, Cruise first stopped its operations nationwide because of safety concerns, which followed a recent pedestrian accident that plagued its service. This was a voluntary suspension of its services in the cities after California revoked its license to operate in the state following the issues regarding safety.

The company later decided to relaunch the service in Texas, centering on the three cities it operates in, including Austin, Dallas, and Houston. This was also after a change in its leadership after Kyle Vogt stepped down as its CEO, following scrutiny that looked at its management after a series of unfortunate events that Cruise faced.

However, Cruise's return would not immediately jump back into the autonomous driving experience; instead, it would first focus on a supervised robotaxi service with human drivers. After restarting its operations in Dallas and Phoenix, AZ, Cruise is now adding a new city where it will resume its robotaxi testing, with Houston as its next one on the list, following GM's massive investment.