Here’s what happened at Cruise after the pedestrian-dragging incident
An independent investigation that probes the madness that ensued at Cruise after one of its robotaxis dragged a pedestrian 20 feet in San Francisco last October has been released. In it, you’ll find everything from blaming it on the internet to hush-hush culture to what went wrong with the automated vehicle itself.
A new analysis from General Motors’ own investigation team, released yesterday and first reported by Automotive News, found that after the incident, Cruise says it tried to send a full 45-second video to regulators. In the full video, the pedestrian was shown being dragged, but only part of the video was sent due to “internet connectivity issues,” according to a report from law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan.
The law firm, hired by GM, which owns Cruise, has been investigating whether or not its executives misled regulators after the October 2nd incident. The investigators reviewed more than 205,000 documents, emails, and Slack communication from staff, as well as interviewed 88 current and former employees in their research.
According to the law firm, Cruise staff attempted on three separate times to send the full video, but during all three of these separate meetings, “internet connectivity issues likely precluded or hampered them from seeing the Full Video clearly and fully,” the report stated. Yet, no one pointed out that the video was missing crucial bits either.
The fallout happened after a pedestrian in San Francisco was first struck by a hit-and-run vehicle, then flung into the path of a Cruise robotaxi, which then dragged her 20 feet. The unlucky pedestrian, an unidentified woman, was injured but survived.
The report, which is nearly 200 pages, states that Cruise is also being investigated by the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
For the vehicle itself, apparently it failed to detect the woman’s location, or what part of the car hit her, and the car inaccurately read its own location after striking the woman, so drove on rather than making an emergency stop, according to a report by engineering consultancy Exponent.
From the report in Automotive News:
Mistaking the hit as a side-collision instead of a frontal impact, it moved ahead for about 20 feet at 7.7 miles per hour (12.4 km per hour), dragging the pedestrian underneath, pursuing the prescribed goal of pulling over to the curb, for safety.
In fact, the car was already in the lane next to the curb, but it did not know that because of a location error, the review found.
The pedestrian’s feet and lower legs were visible in the wide-angle left side camera from the time of impact to the final stop, but despite briefly detecting the legs, neither the pedestrian nor her legs were classified or tracked by the vehicle, Exponent said.
Right after the incident, more than 100 Cruise employees were aware of the full scope of the incident prior to the meeting the next day with the San Francisco mayor’s office, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Department of Motor Vehicles, and other officials. Still, even then, Cruise left out the pedestrian-being-dragged part, just “letting the video speak for itself.”
Hours after the accident, apparently, too, some Cruise employees didn’t know that the pedestrian had been dragged, but issued a press statement and shared an early video with the media, The Verge writes. Soon after becoming aware of what happened, Cruise didn’t update its statement, apparently just wishing it would all go away, unnoticed.
Interestingly too, as The Verge pointed out, the report reveals an antagonistic culture within the company regarding regulators, with Cruise employees saying that it “observed too much of an ‘us versus them’ attitude… which is not indicative of a healthy, mutually productive relationship,” says the investigators’ report.
GM has already been hemorrhaging money from its big bet on Cruise, having lost $1.9 billion on Cruise expenses between January and September last year, in addition to a $732 million loss in the third quarter.
California’s Department of Motor Vehicles quickly pulled Cruise’s operating permit after the incident, with Cruise voluntarily pausing all of its operations nationwide soon thereafter.
Meanwhile, a federal probe and independent investigations also dug up internal documents, which detailed pretty awful details about the vehicle’s algorithm – such as it had trouble identifying children, which wasn’t a secret to company staff.
CEO and founder Kyle Vogt called it quits on November 19, followed by a mass layoff of 900 employees as well as nine top execs.
Cruise is facing a potential $1.5 million in fines and additional sanctions over its failure to disclose details about the accident.
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According to a Tesla Semi customer, the electric truck program is suffering more delays and a price increase that is described as “dramatic.”
Tesla Semi has seen many delays, more than any other vehicle program at Tesla.
It was initially unveiled in 2017, and CEO Elon Musk claimed that it would go into production in 2019.
In late 2022, Tesla held an event where it unveiled the “production version” of the Tesla Semi and delivered the first few units to a “customer-partner”: PepsiCo.
More than 3 years later, the vehicle never went into volume production. Instead, Tesla only ran a very low volume pilot production at a factory in Nevada and only delivered a few dozen trucks to customers as part of test programs.
But Tesla promised that things would finally happen for the Tesla Semi this year.
Tesla has been building a new high-volume production factory specifically for the Tesla Semi program in a new building next to Gigafactory Nevada.
The goal was to start production in 2025, start customer deliveries, and ramp up to 50,000 trucks yearly.
Now, Ryder, a large transportation company and early customer-partner in Tesla’s semi truck program, is talking about further delays. The company also refers to a significant price increase.
California’s Mobile Source Air Pollution Reduction Review Committee (MSRC) awarded Ryder funding for a project to deploy Tesla Semi trucks and Megachargers at two of its facilities in the state.
Ryder had previously asked for extensions amid the delays in the Tesla Semi program.
In a new letter sent to MSRC last week and obtained by Electrek, Ryder asked the agency for another 28-month delay. The letter references delays in “Tesla product design, vehicle production” and it mentions “dramatic changes to the Tesla product economics”:
This extension is needed due to delays in Tesla product design, vehicle production and dramatic changes to the Tesla product economics. These delays have caused us to reevaluate the current Ryder fleet in the area.
The logistics company now says it plans to “deploy 18 Tesla Semi vehicles by June 2026.”
The reference to “dramatic changes to the Tesla product economics” points to a significant price increase for the Tesla Semi, which further communication with MSRC confirms.
In the agenda of a meeting to discuss the extension and changes to the project yesterday, MSRC confirms that the project went from 42 to 18 Tesla Semi trucks while the project commitment is not changing:
Ryder has indicated that their electric tractor manufacturer partner, Tesla, has experienced continued delays in product design and production. There have also been dramatic changes to the product economics. Ryder requests to reduce the number of vehicles from 42 to 18, stating that this would maintain their $7.5 million private match commitment.
In addition to the electric trucks, the project originally involved installing two integrated power centers and four Tesla Megachargers, split between two locations. Ryder is also looking to now install 3 Megachargers per location for a total of 6 instead of 4.
The project changes also mention that “Ryder states that Tesla now requires 600kW chargers rather than the 750kW units originally engineered.”
Tesla Semi Price
When originally unveiling the Tesla Semi in 2017, the automaker mentioned prices of $150,000 for a 300-mile range truck and $180,000 for the 500-mile version. Tesla also took orders for a “Founder’s Series Semi” at $200,000.
However, Tesla didn’t update the prices when launching the “production version” of the truck in late 2023. Price increases have been speculated, but the company has never confirmed them.
New diesel-powered Class 8 semi trucks in the US today often range between $150,000 and $220,000.
The combination of a reasonable purchase price and low operation costs, thanks to cheaper electric rates than diesel, made the Tesla Semi a potentially revolutionary product to reduce the overall costs of operation in trucking while reducing emissions.
However, Ryder now points to a “dramatic” price increase for the Tesla Semi.
What is the cost of a Tesla Semi electric truck now?
Electrek’s Take
As I have often stated, Tesla Semi is the vehicle program I am most excited about at Tesla right now.
If Tesla can produce class 8 trucks capable of moving cargo of similar weight as diesel trucks over 500 miles on a single charge in high volume at a reasonable price point, they have a revolutionary product on their hands.
But the reasonable price part is now being questioned.
After reading the communications between Ryder and MSRC, while not clear, it looks like the program could be interpreted as MSRC covering the costs of installing the charging stations while Ryder committed $7.5 million to buying the trucks.
The math makes sense for the original funding request since $7.5 million divided by 42 trucks results in around $180,000 per truck — what Tesla first quoted for the 500-mile Tesla Semi truck.
Now, with just 18 trucks, it would point to a price of $415,000 per Tesla Semi truck. It’s possible that some of Ryder’s commitment could also go to an increase in Megacharger prices – either per charger or due to the two additional chargers. MSRC said that they don’t give more money when prices go up after an extension.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the 500-mile Tesla Semi ends up costing $350,000 to $400,000.
If that’s the case, Tesla Semi is impressive, but it won’t be the revolutionary product that will change the trucking industry.
It will need to be closer to $250,000-$300,000 to have a significant impact, which is not impossible with higher-volume production but would be difficult.
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