In Cruise crash aftermath, will self-driving tech get kicked to the curb?

The fallout from a recent crash involving a Cruise robotaxi and a pedestrian in San Francisco could do more than imperil the future of the company.

It could damage the entire autonomous vehicle industry.

"AV companies win alone but lose together," said Reilly Brennan, general partner at Trucks Venture Capital. "At this point in the cycle … when one fails, all others are intrinsically implicated."

Although that linkage could fade as self-driving technology matures, for now, the Oct. 2 crash is the lens through which many investors, regulators and consumers view self-driving technology, he said.

That's trouble for the industry. The majority of Americans are already leery of the technology. Only 20 percent of U.S. consumers are comfortable with testing autonomous vehicles on streets and highways near them, according to a J.D. Power study issued last month. The research firm said consumer confidence was "fragile."

Other data reveals public skepticism of self-driving vehicles.

"The whole idea of a system that takes control from the driver continues to not sit well with consumers," Brock Walquist, senior technical research analyst at S&P Global Mobility, said in a June report. S&P Global Mobility found that just 47 percent of consumers said they would ride in a car with self-driving abilities.

The Cruise collision took place after J.D. Power conducted its survey. In the crash, a Cruise robotaxi ran over a pedestrian who fell into its path after being struck by a human-driven car at an intersection. The Cruise robotaxi stopped on top of the victim, then started driving again, dragging the pedestrian another 20 feet. Consumer organizations opposed to self-driving deployments and labor groups such as the Teamsters have used the incident as a galvanizing moment.

Safe Street Rebel, a San Francisco community organization that advocates for pedestrians and traffic safety, praised the California Department of Motor Vehicles' decision Oct. 24 to suspend Cruise's permits to operate driverless taxis as "long overdue."

The organization characterized the crash as an industry, rather than a Cruise-specific, problem.

"Waymo is still out there, as are all human-driven cars that also put pedestrians and bikers at risk and get in the way of buses and emergency vehicles," Safe Street Rebel said in a written statement.

Likewise, the Teamsters, which has resisted autonomy in both ride-hailing and trucking applications, portrayed the Cruise crash as illustrative of larger industry deficiencies.

"Right now, it is absolutely clear that AVs are not ready for prime time," said Peter Finn, the Teamsters' western region vice president.

More than two dozen unions urged U.S. auto safety regulators on Thursday to open an industrywide probe into self-driving vehicles. In addition to the Teamsters, the list includes the Transportation Trades Department, Transport Workers Union of America and the UAW.

Moreover, a Honda Motor Co. senior executive said Thursday the automaker would put no further funds in Cruise. Honda and GM have maintained a partnership in Cruise since 2018 to develop autonomous vehicles. As recently as last month, Honda and Cruise had planned to test commercial robotaxis in Tokyo.

Financial concerns related to self-driving ride-hailing services had arisen long before the latest Cruise crash. Waymo, the robotaxi division of Google parent Alphabet, has had several rounds of layoffs this year. Last year, Ford Motor Co. recorded a $2.7 billion write-down when it and Volkswagen Group shuttered the self-driving startup Argo AI.

"AVs fail every test we have for investing capital," Robert Stevenson, co-director of private investing at Franklin Templeton, said in July at an industry conference.

Elsewhere, the industry is pushing beyond robotaxis. Autonomy use cases in more structured environments such as mining and agriculture have gained favor with investors.

Long-haul trucking might be one such environment. Self-driving technology company Aurora Innovation on Nov. 1 said it has prepared the first route for driverless trucks that includes commercial-ready terminals for the vehicles. It is testing the Interstate 45 route between Dallas and Houston and plans to start removing human safety drivers from the trucks next year.

But AV trucking startups have endured their own hardships, with companies such as Starsky Robotics, Embark Technology and Locomation closing and TuSimple shifting its focus overseas.

Yet the allure is clear: Truck manufacturer Volvo Group estimates unlocking a southern tier of freight routes from Southern California to Florida would create an annual $42 billion market for autonomous trucking.

Not everyone agrees the issues with Cruise represent an industry headwind.

"For Cruise, it's very much a setback," said Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina law professor who co-authored the SAE Levels of Driving Automation that have become an industry bedrock. "I'm not sure I would term it a setback for automated driving."

Though the crash may present a short-term headache for robotaxi companies including Waymo, Zoox and Motional, Smith said the fledgling state of the industry allows competitors to differentiate themselves.

Waymo, Cruise's chief competitor, could benefit because it has active commercial deployment in San Francisco. It can operate while Cruise sits idled by its indefinite DMV suspension. Beyond that, Smith said companies can articulate a safety philosophy that highlights their gradual rollouts as a smart precaution, which contrasts with Cruise's aggressive expansion plans.

"This has been the proverbial story of the tortoise and the hare, and maybe it's an opportunity for some people to say, 'Well, the fastest is not necessarily the best,' " he said.

Companies may also find ways to differentiate via trustworthiness. Cruise's suspension resulted not only from the technical performance of its vehicle but because California DMV officials said the company misrepresented circumstances related to the crash. Cruise disputes that claim.

City officials point to this strain in trust as one reason why they seek greater transparency into the technical competence of autonomous vehicles. In the wake of the crash, they're renewing calls for data that can provide benchmarks on real-world performance.

Even within the industry, those calls are understandable.

"What we're seeing is a rational and reasonable regulatory response," said Chris Urmson, CEO of Aurora Innovation. "We're introducing new technology. It's appropriate and their job to ask questions, especially when things don't go right."

In some respects, that regulatory response has already been underway. In May, NHTSA issued an amended standing general order that requires AV developers to report incidents. That's resulted in a repository of data that's "fairly high fidelity," Urmson said.

But city officials and their representatives say they need more. They desire a say in how self-driving vehicles operate in their cities and an overarching federal framework that ensures safety benchmarks are consistent and adhered to.

In the long run, they say that will even help the industry's most reliable performers excel, and it would represent a meaningful way for the industry to move forward following the Cruise crash.

"We've been calling for a federal framework that would help avoid this race to the bottom for years," said Alex Engel, spokesperson for the National Association of City Transportation Officials, which counts 100 North American cities and transportation departments among its members.

"We'll end up with better results with a system that lets us verify safety," he said, "as opposed to taking the companies' word for it."