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A San Francisco-based ride-share company specializing in driverless vehicles is set to conduct business in Houston, according to a report from Houston FOX affiliate KRIV.
Cruise’s fledgling service will deploy with a supervisor behind the wheel in Texas’ largest city before May is over, and will go live possibly during the summer, Kyle Vogt, the company’s chief executive officer (CEO), said in a tweet, KRIV reported.
Dallas will also welcome Cruise to its streets as well, the station reported.
“We’re getting bigger in Texas,” the company tweeted.
“I am excited to announce Cruise will go live in Houston and Dallas in the next few months!” Vogt tweeted. “Supervised autonomous driving will start in Houston in a few days, with Dallas to follow soon after.”
Houston and Dallas will join Austin as the cities representing Texas on Cruise’s short list of places where it operates.
KRIV reported that Vogt started the company a decade ago in response to a lifelong dream of putting self-driving vehicles on the road.
Its ride-share service – launched in 2018 initially for company employees – commenced for public usage early last year, Motor Authority reported.
Per KRIV, Cruise belongs to General Motors (GM), which acquired the startup in 2016.
While the company’s autonomous vehicles (AV) operate 24 hours in San Francisco, Motor Authority reported, they limited hours in other locations.
For safety reasons, the AVs travel routes where risky maneuvers such as pulling out of traffic are unlikely.
North Texas mainstream rock radio station KBZS reported that a Cruise representative said the company’s test drives in Houston are to finetune its artificial intelligence (AI) technology to understand the nuances and unique elements of the car-centric Bayou City, with Dallas up next.
According to the station, people who want to book rides with Cruise can do so by adding their names to a local waitlist.
They’ll be informed when in-town rides begin in their communities.