In-car, the same basic design elements are used to populate two tablet displays mounted on the driver and front passenger seat headrests, and another center-mounted tablet up front. One of Cruise’s user experience designers explained that the app we saw was basically the same as the one that Cruise employees are able to use now to hail rides, which are made available on a first come, first service basis. The ride in the modified Bolt EV, a second-generation Cruise test car (only a few of the third-generation vehicles are on roads at the moment, with plans to produce more very soon) involved hailing a car to a location in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood, selecting from one of three available destinations, and then loading into the vehicle to make the trip.Ĭruise’s app (on staff iPhones) resembled other ride hailing apps you’ve probably encountered, mostly taken up by a map and featuring simple interface elements to initiate the hail and notify you when the vehicle arrived. Thus far, employees and investors have had the chance to take rides in the test vehicles – but no one outside the company has had that opportunity, until Cruise gave myself and a handful of other journalists rides around the city this week. GM’s Cruise has a fleet of self-driving cars pretty much continually roving the streets of San Francisco, gathering data and improving their autonomous driving performance with the ultimate goal of underpinning future commercial self-driving products from the automaker. Yesterday, I hailed a ride in San Francisco and got to my destination and back without the help of a human driver.

San francisco driving test route