Cruise Expands Driverless Robotaxi Service to Daytime Hours in San Francisco
Cruise extends its fully driverless ride-hailing service in San Francisco to include daytime hours, starting first with employees. The company plans to offer these expanded hours to the public soon as part of its ongoing rollout strategy.
Cruise expands its driverless ride-hailing service in San Francisco to daytime hours, making the robotaxis available to employees around the clock. The company starts by offering these daytime rides to its own staff before rolling the feature out to the general public. This milestone marks a significant step for the GM subsidiary as it moves beyond its original nighttime-only operations.
Public customers currently pay for driverless rides between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m., with fares consisting of a $5 base fee alongside per-mile and per-minute rates. About 70 autonomous vehicles operate in this commercial fleet, which is part of a larger 300-vehicle deployment across San Francisco, Austin, and Phoenix. Unlike traditional ride-hailing platforms, Cruise does not implement surge pricing and guarantees the estimated fare even if the actual trip takes longer.
The company follows a cautious expansion playbook in San Francisco by starting with employees, limiting service areas, and restricting hours before gradually opening access to the public. Earlier this month, Cruise also expanded its geographic coverage to most of San Francisco for employee testing. As the company prepares to launch commercial services in Austin and Phoenix by the end of the year, it expects to move much faster in those markets due to fewer regulatory hurdles compared to California.