Driverless car company to conduct data collection testing in Seattle

A company innovating the way people travel will be testing out its self-driving vehicles in six Seattle neighborhoods from August 28 to September 1.

According to GeekWire, Cruise, an autonomous vehicle company backed by General Motors, will be launching a small fleet of vehicles across the city in order to learn from Seattle's hilly environment and rainy weather conditions. 

"Seattle is a great urban environment for us to continue to extend our testing and operations," Mohamed "Mo" Elshenawy, Cruise’s executive VP of engineering said in an interview with GeekWire last week.

The company will be collecting data to assess the readiness of its AV system, which according to GeekWire, includes sensors, infrastructure, compute and network, hardware and software interface and applications.

Beginning August 28, these cars will be seen driving in Downtown Seattle, Capitol Hill, Queen Anne, Fremont, the University District and West Seattle. However, even though the cars can drive on their own, there will be someone inside the cars making sure everything runs smoothly… at least for now.

"I was just visiting friends in San Francisco and we were walking in the Presidio, and we were actually on a pretty small street in the Presidio and all of a sudden there was a car coming up behind us and looked over, and it’s like, oh my god, there’s not anybody in that car!" said Janet Frohnmayer, while shopping in Queen Anne.

"I want to see more data. That’s it. More data and then I would trust it," said Daryl Henderson while visiting Queen Anne.

Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) said, "Cruise did not submit a permit application and did not give prior notice to the City regarding their operations." Further explaining, "Cruise however does not need a permit for manually driven mapping. Cruise will need to obtain a permit from SDOT prior to testing their autonomous driving system, and will also be required to obtain a permit if they choose to self-certify with the Washington State Department of Licensing’s autonomous vehicle registration process."

SDOT has its Autonomous Vehicle Testing Permit program, which requires a human driver to monitor and be ready to take control if need be, as well as requiring first responder training.

Other self-driving vehicle companies are currently testing in Seattle, like NVIDIA and Amazon's Zoox.

Cruise has planted vehicles for their pilot program in other cities in the U.S. like Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina, Miami, Nashville and Atlanta. Based out of San Francisco, the company has fully launched out of the testing phase in its California hometown, Austin and Phoenix. It has also received a permit to begin charging passengers for rides 24 hours a day in San Francisco. 

The goal of the self-driving cars is to increase safety and improve access to transportation. However, the AV's have had some challenges. For example, in San Francisco there were two driverless cars  involved in separate crashes, with one of those cars hitting a responding fire truck. Officials said the passenger inside the car was hurt.

Locals in a busy Queen Anne question possible safety concerns.

"What do they do when it malfunctions? The computer goes coo-coo? What can they do? Can they control it from wherever they’re controlling these cars? Do they make it shut off?" said "Octavio Godinez, while delivering for Alvarez Organic Farms to the Queen Anne Farmers Market.

The Seattle City Council and SDOT launched their permitting program on Nov. 14, 2022, in response to safety concerns raised by the public after Amazon's driverless car company announced plans to test its product in the city.

At the time, Seattle City Council Transportation Committee Chair Alex Pedersen told GeekWire, "I believe this is a sensible step for basic safety, transparency, and accountability for companies wanting to test emerging technologies on our public streets."

As of now, there is no timeframe as to when Cruise's AV's will receive the green light to go fully driverless in Seattle or in other Washington cities.

Founded in 2013, Cruise has raised a total of $10 billion in investments from GM, Honda, Walmart, T. Rowe Price and Microsoft. $2 billion came from Microsoft, who hopes to bring their cloud computing technology into the equation. 

According to GeekWire, Cruise opened an engineering office in Bellevue, Washington in 2019.