"Houston, we missed you! Today we're resuming driving in Houston where we'll build on the knowledge collected last year. We'll start with human-driven vehicles and move to supervised autonomous driving with a safety driver behind the wheel in the coming weeks, guided by safety," the company wrote on X.
A Cruise representative told Chron that the company would restart operations in Houston on Tuesday with three manually operated vehicles. Cruise will transition to autonomous driving with a driver present in the coming weeks. "No specific timing to share just yet," spokesperson Tiffany Testo said.
In a similar vein, the business restarted operations in Dallas last week, beginning with human-operated driving tests before transitioning to self-driving rideshares. "We're excited to start driving in Dallas as we continue to validate our self-driving technology against our rigorous safety and performance standards," Cruise wrote in a message on X.
The company declined to comment on whether they would move to restart operations in any other Texas cities besides Dallas and Houston.
Cruise's Texas relaunch comes after the company recalled its fleet of 950 autonomous vehicles (AVs) across multiple cities in the U.S. after an October incident where a Cruise vehicle hit and dragged a pedestrian in California. The company, which had a spotty, short-lived stint in Dallas, Houston, and Austin last year before shutting down, resumed driving tests on public roads in Arizona in April. Houston will be its third test city, as the company attempts to "rebuild trust."
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