--- title: "Group of Robotaxis All Shut Down at Same Moment, Stopping Traffic for Hours" description: "A group of Cruise robotaxis shut down simultaneously on a San Francisco street on Tuesday night — a mere week after Cruise officially launched the service." date: "2022-07-01" modified: "2022-07-01" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/group-robotaxis-shut-down-stopping-traffic" categories: - "Advanced Transport" tags: - "cruise" - "driverless cars" - "general motors" - "robotaxi" - "the digest" --- # Group of Robotaxis All Shut Down at Same Moment, Stopping Traffic for Hours ![A group of Cruise robotaxis shut down simultaneously on a San Francisco street on Tuesday night — a mere week after Cruise officially launched the service.]() *\Image: Cruise\* ## Maybe Driver More than a half dozen GM Cruise robotaxis shut down simultaneously on a San Francisco street on Tuesday night — a mere week after Cruise officially [launched its fare-collecting driverless robotaxi service]() in the city. The incident caused traffic to build up for hours, until GM employees were able to manually move the vehicles away, [*TechCrunch* reports](). It's hilarious, but also an incident that goes to show the significant remaining liabilities still blocking autonomous vehicles from a mainstream role in transportation infrastructure. ## Surreal Life Photos [shared on the San Francisco subreddit]() shows a number of Cruise cars seemingly blocking several lanes of a major thoroughfare "[for a couple of hours]()," according to the user who shared the images. "It was a pretty surreal event," one user [commented](). "Humans had to come and manually take the cars away." "They're unionizing," another [joked](). A Cruise spokesperson later clarified to *TechCrunch* that "we had an issue earlier this week that caused some of our vehicles to cluster together." "While it was resolved and no passengers were impacted, we apologize to anyone who was inconvenienced," they added. ## Growing Pains Introducing robotaxis in a city full of human drivers has already led to some unusual encounters on public streets. In April, for instance, a viral video showed confused San Francisco police officers [pulling over a driverless Cruise robotaxi](). In many ways, these growing pains are only to be expected. For better or worse, tech companies like Cruise or Tesla still have a lot of kinks to iron out as they push for a driverless future. Fortunately, nobody got hurt this time around — though the threat always looms. **READ MORE:** [Cruise robotaxis blocked traffic for hours on this San Francisco street]() \[*TechCrunch*\] **More on Cruise:** *[GM's Robotaxis Are Now Collecting Fares with No Safety Driver]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()