San Diego mayor ‘committed to innovation’ despite Cruise AV suspension

San Diego mayor Todd Gloria says his city remains “committed to innovation” in the wake of a ban on Cruise autonomous vehicles (AVs) in California last week.

Speaking during an interview on the sidelines of the Cities Today Institute City Leadership Forum in San Diego, the mayor said that while safety needs to be a priority, the technology behind AVs is also evolving rapidly.

“What may [have] seemed fanciful just a couple of years ago is now reality, and new innovations like autonomous vehicles will surely get better with time.

“I can see why [the authorities] wanted to step in immediately to make sure that all work is safe. But that should not result in no additional work in the [AV] space.

“I think in this case, we should engage, look at it closely and provide reasonable regulations and then adjust as we have experiences.”

Last week, California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) ordered ‘robotaxi’ operator Cruise to remove its driverless cars from state roads. They were operating in San Francisco following approval to expand services in August.

The department said the driverless vehicles were a risk to the public and that the company had “misrepresented” the technology’s safety after a series of incidents.

Two days after the ban was announced Cruise said it would be suspending all its US robotaxi operations – affecting services in Phoenix, Houston, Austin, Dallas and Miami.

Google’s Waymo, Cruise’s main rival, maintains its permit to operate in San Francisco.

Importance of regulation

While the AVs did not operate in San Diego, the mayor drew comparisons with his city’s experience of implementing new mobility technologies like e-scooters.

“One thing we did not do well early on regarding e-scooters, for example, was allowing them to operate without any kind of regulation – and that did not work well.

“We’ve had to play catch up and regain the trust of the public who really felt we were in a bit of a ‘wild west’ situation.”

In August 2022, the city implemented strict new policies regarding the use of e-scooters, including automatically slowing down vehicles operating on pavements.

The number of annual rides taken by shared e-scooters has since fallen from 3 million to 595,000, though the city says some of this may be attributed to more people buying private e-scooters and the introduction of new neighbourhood shuttle services.

Three firms – Spin, Lime and Link – have ceased operations, leaving Bird as the city’s only e-scooter provider.

“There’s no more dynamic issue right now than mobility,” added Mayor Gloria.

“A few years ago, you basically had only a handful of options – now you have micromobility solutions, shared solutions, and now autonomous solutions.

“[Mobility] is going to continue to innovate and the number of options are going to grow.”

Image: City of San Diego