General Motors Self-Driving Unit Cruise Admits To Submitting False Report, Will Pay $500,000 Fine

False Reports: General Motors' self-driving car unit, Cruise, mitted on Thursday to submitting a false report to influence a federal investigation and will pay a $500,000 criminal fine as part of a deferred prosecution agreement, Justice Department said.

department said Cruise failed to disclose key details of an October 2023 crash to National Highway Traffic Safety ministration (NHTSA) in which one of its robotaxis in San Francisco struck a pedestrian after she was hit by anor vehicle and dragged her 20 feet (6.1 meters).

“Companies with self-driving cars that seek to share our ros and crosswalks must be fully truthful in ir reports to ir regulators,” said Martha Boersch, who hes criminal division for US Attorney's Office in San Francisco.

Under three-year agreement, Cruise must cooperate with government investigations, implement a safety compliance program, and provide annual reports to US Attorney's Office, which can proceed with prosecution of charged offense if Cruise fails to comply over next three years.

"Cruise will comply with requirements set forth in agreement, as we continue to move forward under new leership and with a firm commitment to transparency with our regulators," said Cruise President Craig Glidden in a statement.

In response to accident and subsequent investigations, Cruise's CEO and co-founder both resigned, company cut a quarter of its workforce and fired nine executives, including its chief operating officer and chief legal and policy officer.

Cruise robotaxi stopped after running over pedestrian but n attempted to pull over to side of ro with woman underneath it, dragging woman who was seriously injured. Cruise's report to NHTSA omitted reference to dragging. GM subsequently reached a settlement with woman worth at least $8 million, a person confirmed to Reuters.

In September, Cruise agreed to pay a $1.5 million fine to resolve an NHTSA investigation. Cruise must submit to NHTSA a corrective action plan on how it will improve its compliance with reporting of serious incidents and face enhanced reporting requirements for at least two years.

NHTSA's investigation into wher Cruise is taking sufficient precautions with its autonomous robotaxis to safeguard pedestrians remains open. In August, Cruise recalled 1,200 robotaxis over hard braking issues.

company also faces a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation.

Cruise has relaunched supervised autonomous driving testing in three US cities but abandoned its Origin vehicle that does not have human controls. company said in August it will offer its autonomous vehicles on ride-hailing platform Uber UBER.N starting next year.