WionDrive News Desk 
General Motors’ robotaxi unit Cruise is offering to pay USD 75,000 to resolve an investigation by California regulators after it failed to disclose details of a pedestrian crash involving its self-driving car. The California Public Utilities Commission, in December, had ordered Cruise to appear at a February 6 court hearing for misleading authorities “through omission” on the extent and seriousness of the accident and for “misleading public comments” on interactions with the agency.
Cruise had requested for the hearing to be deferred and sought an alternative mode of dispute resolution. Since the October crash involving its self-driving car, the company has fired nine executives, including its chief operating officer and chief legal and policy officer. The unit’s CEO Kyle Vogt and co-founder Dan Kan resigned in November.
Cruise has retained law firm Quinn Emanuel to examine its response to the crash. The investigation is expected to be completed with findings made public before February 6. The company also offered to boost its reporting of collisions to the commission as part of its settlement offer. After the crash, the robotaxi company pulled all its US vehicles from self-driving testing after California suspended its driverless testing permit.
Amid increasing scrutiny from public and regulators, Cruise’s new president Mo Elshenawy recently acknowledged that the robotaxi firm has hit an “all time low”, while promising to restore trust after the company pulled all of its vehicles from US roads. “Our integrity, our competency are being questioned and this really hurts,” he said while addressing an all-staff meeting in December. “We went from an all-time high to an all-time low and from being an industry leader to temporary pausing all of our operations,” he added. Elshenawy was installed as the president last month after Vogt and Kan stepped down.
