Go home, Cruise, you’re drunk – but call a Waymo, cause you can’t drive in CA anymore
Cruise’s license to operate autonomous vehicles in the state of California has been suspended effective immediately, announced the California Department of Motor Vehicles today.
GM’s Cruise subsidiary has been operating a driverless taxi service in San Francisco for the last few months, after the California Public Utilities Commission approved both GM’s Cruise and Google’s Waymo to expand operations of paid driverless “level 4” taxis in California.
Prior to that approval, Cruise had already been operating a paid driverless taxi service, but only at night. Its cars could operate at other times of day, but had to be either unpaid or have a safety driver present. Cruise actually beat Waymo to the punch on this one, offering a paid taxi service before its Google-based competitor did.
But now the tides have swung back into Waymo’s favor, as the California DMV has decided that Cruise vehicles are a threat to safety and must cease operations in the state immediately until the DMV is satisfied that Cruise has come into compliance with its requirements.
The announcement was made by the DMV today which laid out four violations, related to safety and misrepresentation of facts to the DMV.
These violations were related to an October 2nd incident wherein a human driver hit a pedestrian (and then fled the scene), which pushed the pedestrian into the path of a Cruise vehicle. The Cruise vehicle immediately started braking to a halt before hitting the pedestrian, who was then stuck underneath, and remained on the scene while emergency responders extricated the seriously injured pedestrian. Video confirming the facts of the incident was shared with regulators, and shared with and verified by journalists, but not released to the public.
…Or so the story went. In further investigations, the DMV found out that, in fact, the Cruise vehicle did not remain still after braking, and attempted to pull over to the side of the road, dragging the seriously injured pedestrian about 20 feet at a speed of around 7 miles per hour. While Cruise had video of this subsequent maneuver, it did not disclose the video to the DMV until after DMV learned of it “via discussion with another government agency.”
The DMV’s letter to Cruise chides the company for withholding information, and states that the vehicle’s “subsequent movement… increased the risk of, and may have caused, further injury to the pedestrian.” It also suggests that the vehicles may lack the decisionmaking capability of when it is safer to pull over or when it is safer to sit still after an accident.
So despite Cruise’s lack of responsibility for the initial strike, DMV has still laid responsibility on its decisions after the fact, both in terms of driving and organizational decisions.
The suspension is effective immediately, with Cruise no longer allowed to operate driverless taxis on California roads, though the company can still operate and test vehicles with human safety drivers. DMV states that it has provided Cruise with the steps necessary to reinstate its permits, so we’ll have to stay tuned to see how long it takes them to satisfy the DMV and be able to operate again.
Electrek’s Take
Cruise has been involved in several incidents recently, which have largely been widely reported. From traffic jams due to communication issues within the system, to getting hit by an emergency vehicle (Cruise had a green light – but failed to yield for a fire truck), to driving through wet concrete, there has been quite a bit of bad news.
In contrast, Google’s Waymo, which is often mentioned in the same breath as GM’s Cruise, hasn’t had as many problems. While we haven’t been able to compare both of them (I got a chance to test Waymo’s service in LA earlier this month, and came away impressed – read my way-too-detailed article about that ride here – but haven’t been in a Cruise car yet), anecdotally, we hear that the Waymo system works better than Cruise’s, and it also hasn’t had as many widely-reported issues.
Recently, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt stated that these incidents have been “sensationalized,” and frankly he’s not entirely wrong. We’ve known all along that people would be overly cautious of new technology, would accept far less dangerous driving from AVs than the run-of-the-mill (and increasing) chaos they happily accept from human drivers.
You could write volumes about the crazy things that humans have done on the road in the same time frame as Cruise has been operating in SF. I drove for just a few hours today and saw 13 police cars headed for a high-speed chase of a human driver who was going 100mph in the wrong direction, and then later saw a lowered SUV with a popped tire dragging its rear bumper down the freeway, throwing sparks behind it. That was just today, on one drive.
And look at the incident in question here – a human driver caused the accident and fled the scene so as not to be held accountable, and yet virtually all discussion of it has focused on the Cruise AV. Had the Cruise been in the place of the human driver, perhaps the incident would never have happened, and at the very least, at least the vehicle didn’t flee the scene so it could “accept the consequences.”
But that’s the rub – when the humans at Cruise got involved, they misled regulators in a way so as to not accept responsibility. They “hit-and-ran” in the same way as the human driver did.
And while it’s true that the public reacts irrationally to news of AVs behaving badly, Cruise should have known that the public, and regulators, react wholly rationally to public safety cover-ups. In short: they’re not fans.
So when the incident first happened, I thought: okay, this is silly, the main incident people are using to call AVs unsafe is one which was started by a human driver?
But given that there’s more to the story, then it is of course reasonable to suspend Cruise’s license for its mendaciousness in this matter. And hopefully, this will be addressable. Cruise should be able to program the cars to be smarter about what to do in a situation where a pedestrian is actively trapped underneath the vehicle, and hopefully they can program themselves to be a little smarter about transparency in government investigations.
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Japanese oil giant, Idemitsu Kosan, is building a new large-scale lithium sulfide plant that will supply the raw material for Toyota’s upcoming all-solid-state EV batteries.
New plant will supply Toyota’s all-solid-state EV batteries
Toyota has been promising to launch all-solid-state EV batteries for years, but those plans may finally be coming together.
Idemitsu announced on Thursday it will build a large-scale production plant for lithium sulfide, a raw material used in all-solid-state EV batteries.
All-solid-state batteries, often called the “holy grail” of EV battery tech, promise to deliver drastic improvements in driving range, charging speeds, and energy density. As the name implies, they feature a solid electrolyte rather than traditional lithium-ion batteries, which contain a liquid electrolyte.
Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) has already approved the planned construction site. It will cost around 21.3 billion yen ($142 million) and was deemed as a “plan for ensuring supply of storage batteries.”
Idemitsu aims to mass produce all-solid state batteries in 2027 and 2028. The plant will be able to produce 1,000 metric tons of lithium sulphide annually.
The company’s executive officer Tetsuji Mishina told the media (via Reuters) at its oil refinery in China, where it will build the new facility.
Mishina also said Toyota would be its first customer before it plans to expand to others later. Toyota and Idemitsu have been working together since 2023 to develop solid electrolytes for the mass production of all-solid-state EV batteries.
The new plant is another step in the right direction, part of Idemitsu and Toyota’s plans to commercialize all-solid-state EV batteries in 2027 to 2028.
In September, Toyota was granted a METI certification, which gave it the green light to build the new batteries in Japan.
The approval comes as Japan looks to wean itself off dependence on China or South Korea for batteries and establish a stable local supply chain. Toyota and Idemitsu are among several leading Japanese companies investing a combined $7 billion (1 trillion yen) in domestic battery production.
Electrek’s Take
Will Toyota actually launch EVs powered by all-solid-state batteries? They have been touting the new battery tech for years, but it seems to have made some progress recently.
Meanwhile, others are already getting a head start. Mercedes-Benz began testing the “world’s first” production EV powered by solid-state batteries earlier this month.
Through its partnership with US-based Factorial Energy and Mercedes AMG High-Performance Powertrains (HPP), the company tested a slightly modified EQS with over 621 miles of driving range. Mercedes said it was “the first car powered by a lithium-metal solid-state battery on the road.”
Factorial is working with other major OEMs, including Stellantis. Next year, Stellantis plans to launch a series of electric Dodge Chargers powered by Factorials solid-state batteries.
Honda, Hyundai, and let’s not forget global battery leaders CATL and BYD, are also racing to launch the promising new battery tech.
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Environment
Tesla is hit with a fresh class action about its self-driving claims, hardware 3 computer
Tesla is hit with a fresh class action lawsuit about the performance and claims of its self-driving and Autopilot systems as well as its “hardware 3 computer.”
The automaker is already facing dozens of lawsuits over its self-driving claims, crashes using advanced driver assist systems, alledged breaches of fiduciary duties from its CEO and board members, but now ou can add another one to the list.
In Australia, law firms Woodsford and JGA Saddler organized a class action in the Federal Court of Australia against Tesla Motors Australia Pty Ltd (Tesla Australia) and Tesla, Inc. (Tesla US) “alleging that Tesla Australia marketed and sold motor vehicles manufactured by Tesla US that were defective.”
The firms are currently recruiting people who purchased or leased a Tesla Model 3 or Y vehicle in Australia between May 2021 and February 2025.
They are going after Tesla over three specific issues. When it comes to the alleged defect, they are focusing on the phantom breaking issues when using Tesla’s FSD and Autopilot features:
Tesla vehicles have the propensity to autonomously engage automatic emergency braking abruptly in inappropriate circumstances, leading to a risk of collisions.
Another focus of the lawsuit is the discrepancy between the advertised and real range in its vehicles:
They lack the ability to achieve, or come close to achieving, the advertised maximum range or the range displayed on the vehicle’s dashboard when the battery level is greater than 50%.
Finally, the lawsuit is also going after Tesla for claiming that all its vehicles produced since 2016 have the hardware capable of self-driving:
Despite statements or representations to the contrary, the hardware on Tesla vehicles is incapable of supporting fully autonomous or close to autonomous driving.
This lawsuit comes after CEO Elon Musk finally recently admitted that its Hardware 3 self-driving computer (HW3) will not be capable of unsupervised self-driving.
It’s the first known lawsuit about this issue since the CEO admitted the situation.
Tesla has already been having issues selling vehicles in Australia recently. Tesla’s sales were down 17% in the country last year and 33% in the first month of 2025.
Electrek’s Take
I would expect to see a lot of these lawsuits pop up against Tesla in the coming months, especially about HW3 now that Elon admitted that it won’t be capable of unsupervised self-driving as promised.
He did say that Tesla would offer retrofits for people who bought the FSD package, and that’s enough for his fans, but I doubt it will hold in court.
The way I see it, Tesla used the claim that “all cars produced since 2016 have the hardware capable of self-driving” to see these vehicles whether or not people bought the self-driving software package. Buyers who believed Tesla’s claim expected their cars to hold better value because of that, and it never happened.
Tesla could very well have to compensate every single person who bought vehicles from them.
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Xiaomi’s first electric vehicle, the SU7, took the market by storm, securing nearly 250,000 orders in just nine months. Today, the company launched a new flagship variant with over 1,500 hp, starting at under $75,000. Meet the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra.
Xiaomi launches new flagship SU7 Ultra EV variant
In less than a year, Xiaomi’s first EV has become one of the hottest sellers in China. The SU7 hit the market last March and in just nine months, the electric sedan secured nearly 250,000 locked-in orders.
During its product launch event on Thursday, Xiaomi’s CEO, Lei Jun, announced the company had delivered over 135,000 SU7s by the end of 2024.
The sleek electric sedan starts at 215,900 yuan, or just under $30,000. At the event, Xiaomi launched its new flagship “Ultra” SU7 variant.
Hitting the market at just 529,900 yuan ($73,000) on Thursday, the SU7 Ultra is actually much cheaper than expected.
Powered by three electric motors, packing up to 1,526 horsepower, the high-performance EV can sprint from 0 to 100 km/h (0 to 62 mph) in just 1.98 seconds. After it went on pre-sale last October for 814,900 yuan ($112,000), the Ultra model went viral, securing 3,680 pre-orders in just 10 minutes.
That same month, an SU7 prototype claimed the title as the fastest four-door sedan at the famous Nurburgring race track in Germany.
At 5,115 mm long, 1,970 mm wide, and 1,465 mm tall, Xiaomi’s SU7 is about the size of the Porsche Taycan Turbo GT.
The flagship variant features CATL’s Qilin 2.0 battery pack, which has a 93.7 kWh capacity and can provide a CLTC cruising range of up to 385 miles (620 km).
Lei announced on Weibo that the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra has already received over 6,900 orders. The company will begin deliveries in April and aim to deliver 10,000 models.
In 2025, Xiaomi expects to deliver around 300,000 vehicles. This would be a massive accomplishment, given that it started selling cars less than a year ago.
The SU7 wasn’t the only product to get a new “Ultra” edition. Xiaomi, one of China’s largest smartphone makers, launched the new Xiaomi 15 Ultra, starting at 6,499 yuan ($893).
Lei said buyers that place a deposit before March 31 will receive benefits worth up to 90,000 yuan ($12,400), including 15 pieces of carbon fiber (including the rear wing) and their choice of interior design. The offer includes Xiaomi’s full-scenario end-to-end intelligent driving system, free delivery, and more.
Electrek’s Take
For those that don’t remember, the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra was the Chinese EV Ford’s CEO Jim Farley drove after shipping one from Shanghai to Chicago last year.
Farley called the electric car “fantastic” on the Fully Charged Podcast, and even said he “doesn’t want to give it up.”
According to Ford’s CEO, Xiaomi is an “industry juggernaut” and a brand “that’s much stronger than car companies.”One thing is for sure, Xiaomi will be a brand to keep an eye on as China’s electric car market expands into overseas territory.
Source: CarNewsChina, Xiaomi
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