California’s Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has fined General Motors’ Cruise unit the maximum penalty for failing to promptly provide complete information about an accident involving one of its self-driving vehicles last year.
Cruise will pay $112,500, the maximum allowable by the CPUC, which amounts to a $7,500 fine for each of the 15 days it withheld information about the incident.
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The incident has intensified scrutiny on self-driving vehicle companies like Alphabet’s Waymo and Amazon’s Zoox due to safety concerns following multiple crashes involving their vehicles.
As part of the penalty, Cruise must provide “collision reports” to the CPUC and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for collisions occurring in California.
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This action by the CPUC comes after Cruise raised its offer to settle a probe by the regulator over its delay in disclosing details of a pedestrian crash in San Francisco on Oct. 2. In that incident, a pedestrian was struck by another car and hit a second time by a Cruise robotaxi.
Following the San Francisco accident, Cruise’s permit to operate in California was suspended, and the NHTSA issued a recall of its vehicles. While Cruise resumed operations with a small fleet of human-driven vehicles in Phoenix, Arizona in April, its authority to provide passenger service in its autonomous vehicles remains suspended, according to the CPUC.