My First Cruise AV Ride

Yesterday I took my first ride in a Cruise autonomous vehicle! It was so much fun.

You can see in the photo that my car was named Tamale. Cruise names its vehicles playfully 🤗

Tamale took me from Cruise headquarters to the Pacific Heights neighborhood and back. That took a little under an hour, in San Francisco traffic.

Along the way we went up and down lots of hills, through several construction zones, and across multi-way intersections.

I sat in the back, while two Cruise technical operators sat in the front.

The vehicle’s ability to navigate really complex situations amazed me. I’ve seen vehicles handle these situations many times as an engineer, replaying rides at my computer. But riding in the vehicle really emphasizes the vehicle’s performance, and the complexity of the task.

I also observed lots of small potential improvements, many of which I know the engineering teams at Cruise are already tackling.

Riding in a self-driving car is a great way to appreciate just how impressive artificial intelligence and robotics is, and what the future holds in store.

I hope everybody gets the opportunity 🚗 😊