GM Cruise
An automated Cruise Chevrolet Bolt undergoing testing in San Francisco, US. Credit: Dllu.

General Motors’ (GM) self-driving unit Cruise has announced that it will push back plans to launch an autonomous ride-hailing service.

Cruise chief executive Dan Ammann revealed the latest development during the announcement a new set of actions towards large-scale deployment in San Francisco.

In late 2017, GM set a goal to begin commercialisation of the driverless-vehicle service ‘in large-scale’ later this year.

However, the target has faced a setback as the company believes that the deployment can take place only if it is able to win ‘the tech race and the trust race’.

In a blog post, Ammann said: “In order to reach the level of performance and safety validation required to deploy a fully driverless service in San Francisco, we will be significantly increasing our testing and validation miles over the balance of this year, which has the effect of carrying the timing of fully driverless deployment beyond the end of the year.”

GM acquired the autonomous vehicle company in 2016 for around $1bn.

Cruise has seen investment in the company from SoftBank’s Vision Fund, Honda Motor, and T Rowe Price Associates.

In the blog post, Ammann added: “When you’re working on the large scale deployment of mission-critical safety systems, the mindset of ‘move fast and break things’ certainly doesn’t cut it.

“With such high stakes, our first deployment needs to be done right and we will only deploy when we can demonstrate that we will have a net positive impact on safety on our roads.

“We are in discussions with our regulators on how this will be measured and validated. We will share more on this topic in the near future.”