Driverless race steps up with Cruise allowed to drive empty in San Francisco

By Jane Lanhee Lee
OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - The race for driverless autonomous vehicles is heating up and on Thursday Cruise became the first to receive a permit to test cars without anyone in them on the streets of San Francisco from California's Department of Motor Vehicles.
Cruise, which is majority owned by General Motors Co <GM.N> and counts Honda Motor Co Ltd <7267.T> and SoftBank Group <9984.T> as investors, has been testing 180 self-driving cars in San Francisco with a safety driver behind the wheel, and the permit allows five of those cars to roam empty. But don’t expect robo-taxis just yet.
“So that's a step or two beyond what we'll be doing initially with this permit,” said Dan Ammann, Cruise’s chief executive. “It’s not too far down the road,” he said, but declined to share a timeline.
...


Read More on Datafloq