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Cruise’s robotaxis have driven 1 million miles with nobody behind the wheel

San francisco's chaotic streets are giving the company tons of driving data..

For autonomous vehicle developers, every mile driven serves as proof that their technology works and as an opportunity to gather data for further improvement. Which is why Cruise, which has just announced that it has completed 1 million fully driverless miles, calls the achievement one of its biggest milestones yet. A spokesperson told us that those were miles driven with no safety driver behind the wheel and that most of them were collected in San Francisco.

If you'll recall, the GM subsidiary started testing fully driverless rides in the city back in November 2021 . It was also the first company to ever receive a driverless deployment permit from the California Public Utilities Commission, allowing it to charge passengers for robotaxi rides by June last year. Based on the disengagement reports it submitted to the California DMV, it only had around 30 cars or so operating at the beginning of 2022. CNN said it was maintaining a fleet of 100 vehicles by September last year and was seeking to add 5,000 more.

Mo Elshenawy, Cruise's EVP of engineering, said each one of those miles "has been packed with complex scenarios that have set Cruise up for rapid scale." Since San Francisco streets are often chaotic and packed with people, the company was able to gather tons of useful data it can use to better its technology. "For example," Elshenawy wrote in a blog post, "stop sign blow-throughs are 46x times more frequent in San Francisco than in suburban areas."

Cruise has been feeding data from each drive into a continuous learning machine that creates millions of permutations of real-world scenarios on the road. That allows the technology to learn from simulated drives and then apply what it learns in real life. "When you consider our safety record, the gravity of our team’s achievement comes into sharper focus," Elshenawy continued. "To date, riders have taken tens of thousands of rides in Cruise AVs. In the coming years, millions of people will experience this fully driverless future for themselves."

Cruise's announcement comes almost a month after San Francisco officials sent a letter to California regulators, asking them to slow Cruise's (and Waymo's) expansion plans. They reportedly wanted a better understanding of autonomous vehicles first and were worried about "the hazards and network impacts caused by planned and unplanned AV stops that obstruct traffic." As The New York Times said in a recent report, stalled Cruise and Waymo vehicles have caused traffic jams in San Francisco several times in the past. Officials believe these companies have to significantly improve their technologies before expanding, or else they "could quickly exhaust emergency response resources and could undermine public confidence in all automated driving technology."

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Here’s What a Cruise Robotaxi Ride Looks Like

GM’s Cruise aims to launch robotaxis in 2022, but they’re already testing in San Francisco.

• GM's Cruise is testing driverless robotaxi prototypes in San Francisco, without a backup driver, between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.
• Cruise plans to launch a paid robotaxi service in 2022 at the earliest, ahead of a wider rollout.
• Some regulatory and technical barriers remain, even as a handful of companies are using Level 4 vehicles in limited areas.

Just what does such a driverless future look like?

Kyle Vogt , the autonomous unit's co-founder and president, went for a few rides in the prototype, which first took to the streets of San Francisco last week, operating between the hours of 10p.m. and 6a.m. That's when the driverless taxis based on the Chevy Bolt have been cleared to operate, though the cars aren't allowed to pick up paying customers just yet. But the first night of driverless operation was a major milestone for Cruise, for General Motors, and for the autonomous vehicle industry.

"Around 11 p.m. Monday night we launched an AV without anyone inside for the first time. Until now we've been testing with humans in the driver's or passenger's seat, so this was a first. It began to roam around the city, waiting for a ride request," Vogt tweeted .

"At 11:20 p.m. I used the Cruise app and summoned my first ride. After a few minutes, one of the Cruise AVs (named Sourdough) drove up to me and pulled over. Nobody was inside the car."

Vogt got in, pressed the "Start Ride" button, and the driverless taxi pulled away from the curb and entered traffic.

"It's hard to explain, but without someone sitting in the driver's seat, the AV comes to life in a different way—almost like it has its own personality. I'd say Sourdough's driving gave off a gingerly yet confident vibe," Vogt tweeted .

"Once we arrived at my destination, Sourdough pulled over and put the car into park. I hopped out, shut the door, and after a few seconds I heard Sourdough shift into gear and watched it pull away."

After the first ride, Vogt requested five more that night as the taxi roamed the streets by itself, along with other Cruise executives.

Just when will Uber and Lyft drivers need to find other employment, not to mention taxi drivers?

That's still in the future, with Cruise being one of just a handful of autonomous developers aiming to launch Level 4 vehicles with paying customers in the back seat. Now it's believed to be the near future we're talking about, rather that one expected even three years ago, when optimism regarding anything above Level 3 seemed to have hit a low. Since that time a number of Level 4 vehicles have entered limited operation in some small pockets, mainly as technology demonstrators, as developers focused on mapping a number of metro areas in preparation for the first commercial service. Now that first commercial service is believed to be just a few months away.

With Level 4 robotaxis now testing in several cities, the launch of for-profit Level 4 autonomous vehicles is becoming a question of scale rather than a question of technology, and Cruise certainly appears to be one of just a few companies with the best shot at launching real driverless taxis.

Jay Ramey grew up around very strange European cars, and instead of seeking out something reliable and comfortable for his own personal use he has been drawn to the more adventurous side of the dependability spectrum. Despite being followed around by French cars for the past decade, he has somehow been able to avoid Citroën ownership, judging them too commonplace, and is currently looking at cars from the former Czechoslovakia. Jay has been with Autoweek since 2013. 

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Cruise acquires Voyage in another autonomous vehicle merger

Dense, urban testing meets low-speed retirement community testing.

By Andrew J. Hawkins , transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation. His work has appeared in The New York Daily News and City & State.

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Cruise, a majority-owned subsidiary of General Motors, will acquire self-driving startup Voyage in another major autonomous vehicle merger. The announcement came less than a week after news first surfaced that the two companies were in talks about an acquisition. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Cruise mainly operates its autonomous vehicles in dense, urban settings like downtown San Francisco, while Voyage oversees a fleet of low-speed autonomous vehicles providing trips to residents of several retirement communities . Both companies have tested their vehicles without a safety driver behind the wheel and aspire to launch full-fledged commercial robot taxi services.

“The self-driving industry is consolidating”

“The self-driving industry is consolidating, and the leaders of a trillion-dollar market are fast emerging,” Voyage CEO Oliver Cameron said in a statement . “After being intimately involved with the AV industry for the last five years, I can say with certainty that Cruise — with its advanced self-driving technology, unique auto-maker partnerships, and all-electric purpose-built vehicle with no human controls — is poised to be  the  clear leader.”

Voyage is a spinoff from Udacity, an online learning service that offers courses in driverless technology. Cameron headed the startup’s open-source self-driving project before launching his own venture. Sebastian Thrun, Udacity’s chairman and one of the founders of Google’s self-driving car project, was briefly chairman of Voyage before a conflict forced him to step down. The company operates a fleet of self-driving cars in two retirement communities, one near San Jose, California, and the other north of Orlando, Florida, both called The Villages. But Voyage doesn’t want to be seen as the exclusive AV service for senior citizens.

“I think sometimes people think Voyage is all about just low speed, zero to 25 mile-an-hour autonomy,” Cameron said in an interview with  The Verge in 2019 . “We’re not. We’re going to expand our capabilities over time, to zero to 35 [mph], to zero to 55 [mph], to zero to 65 [mph]. And one day we’ll connect all the roadways in the US with a Level 4 self-driving car. But we’re not going to say that’ll be delivered next year. And we’re not going to wait to build a business before that’s ready.”

“I think sometimes people think Voyage is all about just low speed, zero to 25 mile-an-hour autonomy”

Cruise is certainly one of the best capitalized autonomous vehicle companies in the world. In 2018, it secured both a  $2.25 billion investment from the SoftBank  Vision Fund and a $2 billion investment from Honda. In 2019,  Cruise landed a $1.15 billion investment  from GM, SoftBank, Honda, and T. Rowe Price Group, which put the company’s valuation at $19 billion.

There have been a rash of mergers in the world of autonomous vehicles over the past few years: Amazon acquired Zoox ; Aurora absorbed Uber’s autonomous vehicle division ; Apple bought distressed startup Drive.ai and was (at one point) considering a tie-up with Hyundai; Intel bought Mobileye ; and Delphi acquired nuTonomy and became Aptiv, which then joined with Hyundai to become Motional . The AV industry has gotten smaller as target dates for mass adoption of autonomous vehicles gets further away.

Cruise recently began testing its fully driverless vehicles in San Francisco for the first time, but the company still doesn’t allow non-employees to ride in its vehicles. Cruise had planned to launch a commercial taxi service in 2019  but failed to do so , and it has yet to publicly commit to a new date.

Last year,  Cruise unveiled the Cruise Origin , a fully driverless prototype vehicle without a steering wheel, pedals, or any controls typically associated with human driving. The vehicle, which will go into production at  GM’s Detroit-Hamtramck plant , is built to be shared by multiple passengers — though it remains to be seen how much appetite there is for shared vehicles in a post-COVID world. Cruise recently unveiled a new set of safety protocols intended to keep people socially distant during trips and the vehicle sanitized between fares.

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GM’s Cruise Loses Its Self-Driving License in San Francisco After a Robotaxi Dragged a Person

California has suspended driverless vehicles operated by the General Motors subsidiary Cruise in the city of San Francisco—just two months after the state began allowing the robotaxis to pick up paying passengers around the clock. The suspension stems from a gruesome incident on October 2 in which a human-driven vehicle hit a female pedestrian and threw her into the path of a Cruise car. The driverless Cruise car hit her, stopped, and then tried to pull over, dragging her approximately 20 feet.

California’s Department of Motor Vehicles says in a statement that it has determined that Cruise’s vehicles are not safe for public operation, and that the company ”misrepresented” safety information about its autonomous vehicle technology. In a filing on the suspension, the agency says that Cruise initially provided footage showing only the collision between its vehicle and the woman. It says Cruise did not disclose information about its car's subsequent “pull-over maneuver” that dragged the woman after the initial impact, and that the DMV only obtained full footage nine days after the crash.

Cruise spokesperson Navideh Forghani says Cruise has stayed in close contact with regulators but disputed the DMV’s timeline. She says the agency was shown video of the entire incident, including the pull-over, the day after the crash. The DMV says Cruise will either have to appeal its decision or provide information about how it has addressed its technology’s “deficiencies” in order to win back its permit.

Also today, the California Public Utilities Commission, which initially granted Cruise permission to carry passengers, suspended the company’s permits as it carries out its own investigation of the company, CPUC spokesperson Terrie Prosper wrote in an email. Passengers will not be able to ride in San Francisco until the permits are reinstated.

The suspensions mark a serious setback for the driverless vehicle industry, which has faced charges of under-regulation even as Cruise and others plan to expand to new cities across the US. Cruise is still permitted to operate robotaxis in San Francisco with a human safety driver behind the wheel—which is how the company initially began to test self-driving cars in the city. The DMV suspension has no specified end date.

Cruise provided additional details of the October 2 collision in a blog post published today. According to the company, which has 40 cameras and sensors mounted on each of its vehicles, its self-driving vehicle quickly swerved and braked in an attempt to avoid a collision with the woman, but still made impact. The vehicle then stopped but, according to Cruise, “attempted to pull over,” dragging the woman an additional 20 feet. Cruise says this sort of evasive maneuver was built into the vehicle’s software to promote safety, and is required by both California and federal regulators.

Cruise says the vehicle then stopped again. Emergency responders arrived soon after, according to TV station NBC Bay Area, and the San Francisco Fire Department said the victim was “extricated from beneath the vehicle using rescue tools.” The department said she was transported to the hospital with multiple traumatic injuries. The human driver of the vehicle that initially struck the woman has not been caught.

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Last week, the top US road safety regulator, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, opened an investigation into Cruise’s autonomous driving system, based on at least four reported incidents in which Cruise vehicles collided with or got close to pedestrians and pedestrian crosswalks, including the October 2 crash

Forghani, the Cruise spokesperson, says the company has shared video and other information related to the incident with the California DMV and NHTSA officials. “Our teams are currently doing an analysis to identify potential enhancements to the [autonomous vehicle]’s response to this kind of extremely rare event,” she wrote in a statement.

In August, California’s DMV asked Cruise to cut in half the number of self-driving vehicles operating in the city after its robotaxis were involved in a series of crashes, including one in which a Cruise vehicle collided with a fire truck that ran a red light on the way to an emergency.

Even before Cruise and its leading competitor, Alphabet’s Waymo , received permission from the state taxi regulator to operate all-day paid rides in San Francisco, both companies received criticism from city residents, emergency responders, and labor advocates for incidents in which the technology froze in or impeded city traffic .

In August, the San Francisco Fire Department told state officials that its employees experienced at least 55 incidents with self-driving cars since the beginning of 2023, including a handful in which fire officials report the cars delayed emergency responders. In one incident, worried fire personnel broke the windows of a Cruise vehicle in an attempt to prevent it from driving onto an active fire scene. Robotaxis have also delayed city transit buses and streetcars. Cruise said earlier this month that it has improved the way its technology responds to emergency vehicles and situations.

Updated 10-24-2023, 8:45 pm EDT: This story was updated with information about the CPUC suspending Cruise's permit to carry passengers.

Updated 10-24-2023, 6:05 pm EDT: This story was updated with additional details of the DMV's suspension and appeal's process, and additional comment from Cruise.

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America Is About to See Way More Driverless Cars

Robotaxis are now picking up riders in L.A. and Houston—and facing a whole new set of challenges.

The future of driverless cars in America is a promotional booth with a surfboard and a movie director’s clapboard. Robotaxis have officially arrived in Los Angeles, and last week, residents lined up in Santa Monica’s main promenade to get a smartphone code needed to ride in them. For now, the cars, from the Alphabet-owned start-up Waymo, won’t leave the tame streets of Santa Monica. But in the coming months, they’ll embark on a multi-month “tour” of the city, heading to West Hollywood, downtown L.A., and several other neighborhoods.

For the past decade, the two leading robotaxi companies, Waymo and Cruise, have been focused primarily on San Francisco and Phoenix, where they both already take paid passengers. But now they are expanding into new cities, adding millions more potential riders (and bystanders) into the mix. Last week, Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors, launched its robotaxi service in Houston , and will also soon do the same in Dallas. In addition to L.A., where Cruise is testing and reportedly will soon expand , Waymo is kicking off in Austin, where Cruise already takes passengers.

In San Francisco in particular, the cars have jammed up in ways both silly and serious. Local protesters, fed up with the technology, have put cones on top of the cars to confuse their navigation system . But now the vehicles will face new challenges: As they move beyond their hometowns, their systems will be tested on new kinds of streets, with different driving cultures and different rules. They’ll have to drive in notorious L.A. traffic and notorious Houston traffic . Robotaxis haven’t had it easy in San Francisco, but the race to go national might still be bumpy.

If self-driving cars can handle San Francisco, they should ideally be able to handle anywhere. The city is “by far the toughest environment anywhere in the world to test such technology due to topography and complex street geometries,” Rahul Jain, a professor at the University of Southern California and the director of its Center for Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence, told me over email. Cruise says it chose to start there in part because of these challenges, which the company argues makes it a good place to build this technology. In San Francisco, I’ve ridden in cars made by each company , and in both instances, the cars navigated the streets with impressive ease. L.A. should be easier, but it poses new challenges in terms of traffic and driver aggression. Having lived and driven in both cities, I can confirm that L.A. drivers have more of a knack for speeding and changing lanes in tight highway traffic. “You have to be a little bit wild to be able to drive here,” Jain joked.

In L.A., Waymo cars won’t go on the highway, but the rollout still will not be easy. Both companies test their cars for many hours before passengers can start riding, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be perfect when the vehicles go fully operational; after all, they were likewise tested in San Francisco for many years . Both Waymo and Cruise may soon learn the ways that their computer-vision systems are and aren’t generalizable between cities, says Missy Cummings, the director of George Mason University’s Autonomy and Robotics Center: “They may have to retrain a bunch of their neural nets.”

As each other’s biggest competitor, both Cruise and Waymo appear eager to expand and signal that they are one step closer to robotaxi supremacy. I asked Cummings whether she thought these two companies should be taking passengers in Los Angeles. For Cruise, she offered a blunt no. She was softer when it came to Waymo: “I think it makes sense for them.” Cruise in particular has had a rough past few months in San Francisco—a Cruise car drove into wet cement , another collided with a fire truck, and a pedestrian was pinned under a vehicle earlier this month after it was initially hit by a human-driven car. (Cruise tweeted its account of the crash: Their vehicle “braked aggressively to minimize the impact,” and “at the request of the police the AV was kept in place.”) In August, Cruise was asked by California’s DMV to halve its operations in the city .

“Everything I see indicates Cruise has more issues with road safety, but it’s difficult to be sure, because the companies are so opaque with their data,” Phil Koopman, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University who specializes in autonomous-vehicle safety, told me. Cruise and Waymo are required to make some numbers public to regulators, reporting any accidents and, in California, disclosing th e number of miles drive n and any incidents in which a human had to intervene . The companies also release various safety research on their respective websites . But gaps remain: Researchers don’t have precise information about how many robotaxis are operating and where, for example. Nor do they have video footage of every crash.

A spokesperson for Cruise defended its safety record via email, pointing to the company’s own research indicating that its driverless cars are involved in 65 percent fewer collisions than human drivers are in a comparable driving environment. “Cruise drove 10x more miles than any other autonomous vehicle company in San Francisco last year,” the spokesperson added.

What that means is that we’ll likely see more of these kinds of incidents as the robotaxis, and Cruise in particular, spread beyond San Francisco. The most troubling prospect is that a new era in which self-driving cars are operating in even more cities may bring issues experts can’t predict. Noah Goodall, a senior research scientist at the Virginia Transportation Research Council, told me he was surprised that the vehicles have issues navigating emergency services. But that’s par for the course when you’re building something new. “When you’re creating a technology that’s safer, you’ll create other risks that are new that you didn’t have before,” he explained.

None of this is stopping Cruise or Waymo from slowing down. The two companies are in an arms race to advance their self-driving cars, a competition that is also between two industries . Waymo, which began as Google’s self-driving car project and is owned by Alphabet, is as Silicon Valley as start-ups come. Cruise, meanwhile, is owned by General Motors, a legacy automaker that hasn’t historically been anything like a tech company and is far less cash-flush.

Now driverless cars and their promise to reduce America’s road deaths are collapsing some of the differences between car companies and tech companies. “What Silicon Valley learned is the car business is a very, very sophisticated business, and it’s not really easy to design, engineer, manufacture, distribute a vehicle with critical safety systems and so many parts in it,” Lawrence Burns, a former GM executive and former adviser to Waymo, told me over email. “What the auto industry learned from this is that there’s extraordinary talent and capability in Silicon Valley for digital technology, software and experience design applied to the future of transportation.”

The robotaxi race is just one front on which Americans are seeing these changes up close. Electric cars are now so software-enabled that they are often described as “smartphones on wheels.” And many new cars for sale, including those from GM, are stocked with self-driving and autopilot features that far exceed what was available even a few years ago. Los Angeles and Houston will bear witness to the next era of robotaxis, to whatever accidents and missteps they will surely make. They already are. Before Cruise even officially launched in Houston, three of its vehicles reportedly stalled at the same intersection , locking up traffic.

Cruise is bringing its self-driving cars to Nashville

Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt said Thursday it will expand its robotaxi service to Nashville as the GM subsidiary ramps up its commercial operations.

The company’s self-driving vehicles will arrive on Nashville streets this week with a robotaxi service to follow.

The announcement is the latest example of Cruise’s aggressive push into commercial operations. Cruise will also begin testing in multiple, new cities, according to the company. If the company’s careers page provides any hints, it seems Atlanta is one of them.

A year ago, the company only operated in San Francisco. Cruise has since expanded to Austin, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix and most recently Miami .

Cruise isn’t commercially operating in all of these cities just yet. Cruise has established a formula for its rollouts. The company typically enters a new market with test vehicles. Eventually, those vehicles will lose the human safety operator — making it driverless. A ride-hailing service will become available first to employees and then customers who have signed up for the service. The service area and hours often start on a limited basis and slowly expand.

Today we are announcing Nashville 🎸as our next robotaxi-enabled city! You’ll see driverless @cruise AVs there in a few months. This brings us from 1 city to 7 in about a year – and there are still more to come… Here’s how👇(1/9) — Kyle Vogt (@kvogt) July 27, 2023

Today, the company has commercial operations in San Francisco, Austin and Phoenix, with one important caveat. Cruise still isn’t charging for rides in San Francisco because it’s awaiting a final permit from the California Public Utilities Commission.

Vogt said the company has been able to scale so quickly via its so-called city-first strategy, which starts with generalized tech and then tweaks the software to fit specific environments.

“What we had to do was find the areas where our AV system didn’t generalize well and fix it,” he wrote. “In some cases it was as simple as retraining our ML models using data from the new city. In some cases we found we had to redesign parts of a system.”

This approach means each new city requires less work than the last, according to Cruise.

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Self-Driving Taxis Are Causing All Kinds of Trouble in San Francisco

They’ve blocked traffic, driven on the sidewalk, sped away from cops—and the city is powerless to stop them..

When transit systems experience delays, the reason usually isn’t very interesting: congested streets, medical emergencies, mechanical problems. But the cause of a recent holdup on San Francisco’s MUNI system at least had the virtue of being novel.

On Sept. 30 at around 11 p.m., an N Line streetcar ground to a halt at the intersection of Carl Street and Cole Street because an autonomous vehicle from Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors, had halted on the streetcar tracks and wouldn’t budge. According to the city’s transportation department, the 140 passengers riding the N line that evening were stuck in place for seven minutes before a Cruise employee arrived and moved the driverless conveyance. (Cruise did not respond to questions about what happened that night.)

This incident, which was not reported in the media at the time, is one of many in which autonomous vehicles roaming San Francisco’s streets have disrupted the city’s transportation network. In April, a Cruise vehicle blocked a travel lane needed by a siren-blaring fire engine, delaying its arrival at a three-alarm fire. Last fall, dozens of self-driving cars from Google’s Waymo subsidiary drove daily into a quiet cul-de-sac before turning around, much to the frustration of nearby residents.

Because of California’s insufficient and outdated AV reporting requirements, many incidents like these have escaped both public attention and regulatory consequences. Facing minimal scrutiny, AV companies have little incentive to avoid mucking up the public right of way—or even keep city officials informed about what’s happening on their streets.

With Silicon Valley a few miles away, San Francisco has become the top urban location for AV testing and deployment. With California officials granting their first AV deployment permits allowing passenger service this year , the city now offers a preview of what’s to come in other places where self-driving companies are now fanning out, with expansions announced for Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Austin.

Based on San Francisco’s experience, residents and officials in those cities should brace for strange, disruptive, and dangerous happenings on their streets. And they should demand that state officials offer the protection that California is failing to provide.

After a decade of testing and hype, it suddenly felt this year as if self-driving cars were everywhere in San Francisco. While individuals—in California or anywhere else—can’t buy these vehicles for themselves, companies are competing to improve the technology and roll out taxi services that resemble ride hail. In San Francisco, Cruise and Waymo allow residents to request a ride on their app, summoning a driverless vehicle that brings them to their destination. (Waymo transports passengers using safety drivers who can intervene if something goes wrong; Cruise does not.) Joining Cruise and Waymo robotaxis on San Francisco streets are testing vehicles from a number of other AV companies.

Two California agencies decide which autonomous companies have permission to operate within the state. The Department of Motor Vehicles issues permits for the vehicle itself ( dozens of companies have obtained one), while the California Public Utilities Commission provides permits for passenger service. Earlier this year the CPUC issued Cruise and Waymo the state’s first robotaxi permits to transport paying passengers.

California requires that companies conducting AV testing submit information about collisions as well as “disengagements,” or moments when the autonomous system is forced to transfer driving responsibility to a human. The DMV publishes this information, along with each company’s total number of miles of autonomous driving on state roads. But AV executives —joined by some outside observers —have criticized disengagements as a deceptive metric, since it does not take into account the higher degree of difficulty navigating urban streets compared with interstates. Companies could also tinker with their disengagement data to seem safer than they are, something that the Chinese company AutoX has been accused of doing.

“It’s an open question whether or not disengagement data gives you anything useful,” said Billy Riggs, a professor at the University of San Francisco’s School of Management who has followed the state’s AV deployments closely. Even so, California’s regulatory focus on disengagements has powerfully shaped national media coverage of AV safety.

Strange as it may seem, California stops requiring that AV companies share disengagement data and collision locations as soon as they begin collecting passenger fares, as Waymo and Cruise now do. From that point forward, if an AV vehicle jeopardizes safety on the street—for instance, by causing a crash or blocking a transit line—the public won’t know unless the AV company chooses to publicize it (unlikely) or if a passerby reports the incident to 911 or posts about it on social media (unreliable).

Relaxing oversight for AVs with paying passengers might have seemed appropriate during the industry’s age of optimism several years ago, when policymakers could assume that companies would have “solved” autonomous driving before they started charging people for trips. If so, San Francisco’s experience shows that the reality is something else entirely.

Cities, for their part, play no defined role in the state’s AV regulatory structure, leaving them struggling to obtain information about AV-induced roadway blockages or even a list of companies deploying testing vehicles on their streets. Asked by email under what specific conditions Cruise notifies local leaders about an incident, spokesperson Hannah Lindow replied only that the company “maintains an open line of communication and meets regularly with city officials.”

Urban leaders anticipated these problems and tried to forestall them. In 2020 officials from Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego asked the CPUC “not [to] create a deployment program that would give participants blanket authority to operate a fared service anywhere in the State.” The CPUC rejected that request, which has hobbled cities’ ability to manage their streets.

There is an ominous precedent for this situation. When ride hail emerged a decade ago, Uber and Lyft lobbied, mostly successfully, for states rather than cities to oversee them. That preemption left urban leaders with few tools to control (or even monitor) ride hail, which researchers have found increases traffic congestion and reduces transit ridership . Early evidence suggests that an influx of AVs could create similar problems, but on a much larger scale.

It’s been less than a year since California granted its first AV deployment permits, but robotaxis have already caused a slew of problems in San Francisco. In April, a Cruise vehicle stopped by city police pulled over to the side of the street—and then promptly drove away from an officer who tried to look inside. (“Are you serious? How does that happen?” a baffled onlooker exclaimed.) In June, a phalanx of at least a dozen Cruise vehicles obstructed a city arterial . (“Oh no, they’re plotting,” someone quipped on Reddit.) According to city officials, 28 incidents involving Cruise were reported to 911 between May 29 and Sept. 5, including instances of vehicles driving on the sidewalk.

Cruise and other AV companies maintain a ”Critical Response Line” dedicated to handling emergencies, but no public data measure their responsiveness. Cruise does not include information about right-of-way blockages or response times in its self-written, 175-page “ safety report .” Asked how quickly Cruise responds to an emergency involving one of its vehicles, Lindow, the company spokesperson, said Cruise is “striving to do so in 10 minutes or less.” She did not reply when asked how often it achieves that benchmark.

Cruise seems to cause the lion’s share of San Francisco’s AV headaches, but other companies have created problems too, such as the Waymo vehicles that constantly drove into the dead-end terminus of 15 th Avenue, waking up the neighborhood.

Despite all the issues in San Francisco, California’s regulatory agencies have shown no signs of tightening or revising their oversight. Mark Rosekind, the former head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, who now helms the nonprofit California Mobility Center, said authorities “should evolve their regulatory approach to reflect the current state of technology. What data are needed to effectively identify safety issues? That’s a conversation state officials should be having with AV companies and other stakeholders.”

In September, two San Francisco transportation departments took the unusual step of bringing their concerns about AV deployments—and Cruise in particular—directly to the federal government in a 39-page letter submitted to the NHTSA. The letter was prompted by General Motors’ request that NHTSA exempt Cruise’s new AV vehicle, the Origin, from federal vehicle safety rules. Although the city officials stated they neither “support nor oppose” GM’s request, recent experiences have clearly given them pause. The letter highlighted Cruise’s patchy response to emergencies: “On one occasion on August 4, 2022, a City dispatcher placed four calls over six minutes [to Cruise’s emergency response line]; none of these calls were picked up.” Lindow did not respond when asked for comment on that allegation.

The National Association of City Transportation Officials, representing municipal transportation departments across North America, submitted its own letter to the NHTSA that flatly opposed GM’s request that the Cruise Origin receive an exemption from vehicle safety rules. (NHTSA has not yet made a decision.) Kate Fillin-Yeh, NACTO’s director of strategy, said urban transportation leaders nationwide are watching events unfold in San Francisco with growing concern. “I know that AV companies can make more money in cities because there is a density of people there,” she said, “but they’re unhelpful to the many people who rely on transit or walk.”

Indeed, beyond the wow factor of stepping inside a self-driving car, it’s unclear how exactly the introduction of robotaxis improves an urban transportation network. But the risks—including disruptions on public roadways, increased congestion, and reduced transit use—are very real.

Fillin-Yeh said her top request for federal and state policymakers is that they empower local leaders to monitor and manage AVs using their streets. “Cities need to be a part of these conversations about permitting and regulating AVs,” she said. “That isn’t always happening.”

In their letter to NHTSA, San Francisco officials proposed several ways to improve AV oversight. They suggested that NHTSA treat “travel lane failures that block roadways” as a key measure of AV readiness, adding that NHTSA should also quantify and publicize AV companies’ response times to vehicle emergencies.

Riggs, the University of San Francisco professor, agreed on the need to evaluate AV companies’ emergency response times, adding that governments must be especially careful to protect so-called vulnerable road users. “We should be collecting autonomous vehicles’ near-misses with pedestrians and cyclists,” he said.

In an interview, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency director Jeffrey Tumlin insisted that his city’s goals do not conflict with those of AV companies. “It’s in the interest of both the city and the AV industry to minimize impacts to transit and emergency response time,” he said. “But the AV industry doesn’t work if all the vehicles are stuck in traffic congestion. And the industry doesn’t work if they lose all political support because they’re blocking transit and fire departments.”

Meanwhile, AV companies are turning their attention far beyond the Bay Area. Recent press releases have announced new AV deployments in cities across the West and Southwest. Waymo recently declared that it will begin operating in Los Angeles, and a Lyft/Motional partnership plans to launch there as well. (It already operate s in Las Vegas.) Cruise, meanwhile, has opened a waitlist for new service in Austin, Texas, and Phoenix, and chief operating officer Gil West told Reuters , “You’ll likely see us expand the number of markets in a large number [in 2023].” (Southwestern states like Nevada, Texas, and Arizona generally have more laissez-faire approaches toward AV regulation than California does.)

Problems resembling those in San Francisco are already surfacing elsewhere. In November Waymo announced that its robotaxi service was available in downtown Phoenix; less than 10 days later, a passenger tweeted that her autonomous ride there “was smooth sailing until it got stuck in the middle of an intersection.”

With the demise of Argo.ai , an AV company that had received billions in investment, remaining companies face growing pressure to showcase their deployment capabilities to antsy investors. Such competition can be healthy—if it doesn’t sacrifice societal goals around safety, equity, and a balanced transportation network.

But the experience of San Francisco suggests that it very well could, which would undermine support for AVs writ large. After all, it’s difficult to see why Americans should embrace robotaxi services that block intersections, delay transit service, and slow emergency response times. And it’s even harder to understand why any state would repeat California’s mistake of allowing AV companies to provide robotaxi service without collecting and sharing information about all crashes, roadway obstructions, and incident response times. At the federal level, Congress’ interest in restricting states’ few AV management tools would be a step in precisely the wrong direction.

Unfortunately, that now seems to be where autonomous-vehicle regulation is: stuck in an intersection, like that Waymo car in Phoenix, with no one in the driver’s seat.

Lucas Peilert provided research assistance.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate , New America , and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.

Tesla teases its upcoming Uber-like self-driving ride-hailing app

Tesla has teased its upcoming self-driving ride-hailing app, previously called ‘Tesla Network’, that the automaker is positioning as a Uber competitor.

For years now, Tesla has been talking about releasing a ride-hailing app to compete with Uber and now Waymo.

At times, there have been talks about releasing it without self-driving capability, but it is now clear that it is what the automaker is waiting for.

While Tesla has yet to achieve unsupervised self-driving, which would obviously be needed for an autonomous ride-hailing app, recent progress is encouraging the company to start working on that ride-hailing app.

Today, with the release of its Q1 2024 financial results , Tesla has decided to tease its ride-hailing app with some screenshots:

The screenshot shows Uber-like characteristics, but it also includes features unique to self-driving vehicles, like “summoning” the vehicle and adjusting temperature and music directly from the app.

Top comment by Denis Yeremuk

This is literally 2019 all over again when Tesla talked about RoboTaxi coming in 2020.. wake me up when something actual happens

Tesla briefly mentioned its ride-hailing app in its Q1 earnings results:

We have been investing in the hardware and software ecosystems necessary to achieve vehicle autonomy and a ride-hailing service.

And then added:

We are currently working on ride-hailing functionality that will be available in the future. We believe the Tesla software experience is best-in-class across all our products, and plan to seamlessly layer ride-hailing into the Tesla App.

This confirms that the ride-hailing will not be in a separate app, but instead, it will be directly included in the existing and already popular Tesla app.

The automaker didn’t talk about the timing for the release of its ride-hailing service, which again will be dependent on Tesla achieving unsupervised self-driving – something it has yet to do, but claims to be closer than ever to with the release of its FSD v12 software.

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G.M. Unit’s Self-Driving Taxis Are Subject of U.S. Safety Investigation

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is looking into unexpected braking by cars operated by Cruise, a part of General Motors.

By Neal E. Boudette

The main federal auto safety agency disclosed on Friday that it has begun a preliminary investigation into cars that a division of General Motors has been testing as driverless taxis in San Francisco.

The agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said in a filing posted on its website that it had received reports that autonomous taxis operated by G.M.’s Cruise division had become immobilized on roadways, creating obstacles for other vehicles. The agency also said G.M. reported three incidents in which Cruise vehicles slowed suddenly and were hit from behind.

The agency said its Office of Defects Investigation would try to determine the scope and severity of the two types of incidents.

Regulators are increasingly scrutinizing autonomous and semiautonomous cars, and the claims automakers have made about them. The auto safety agency’s most high profile investigation in this area involves Tesla’s self-driving technology. Regulators are looking into at least 14 crashes involving Tesla cars driving on Autopilot that resulted in 19 deaths.

No fatalities or serious injuries have been reported in Cruise cars, but the auto safety agency said the vehicles could potentially put people at risk. When Cruise taxis stop unexpectedly, they “may strand vehicle passengers in unsafe locations, such as lanes of travel or intersections, and become an unexpected obstacle to other road users,” the agency said in its filing. “These immobilizations may increase the risk to exiting passengers. Further, immobilization may cause other road users to make abrupt or unsafe maneuvers to avoid colliding with the immobilized Cruise vehicle.”

The investigation covers 242 vehicles and is the first step before the agency could force G.M. to recall vehicles.

This year, Cruise began offering autonomous taxi rides in part of San Francisco and during low-traffic nighttime hours.

The company’s cars have “driven nearly 700,000 fully autonomous miles in an extremely complex urban environment with zero life-threatening injuries or fatalities,” a spokesman for Cruise, Drew Pusateri, said in a statement. “There’s always a balance between healthy regulatory scrutiny and the innovation we desperately need to save lives, which is why we’ll continue to fully cooperate with NHTSA or any regulator in achieving that shared goal,” he added.

Cruise was recently cleared to expand the service to the city’s downtown area and to operate 24 hours a day. The division has been preparing to expand its operations to Austin, Texas, and Phoenix.

G.M. and other auto and technology companies have spent billions of dollars developing autonomous driving systems with hopes of offering taxi rides, deliveries and trucking services to consumers and other businesses. Waymo, which is owned by Google’s parent company, has been working on the technology for more than a decade and is offering driverless taxis in and around Phoenix. The company said on Friday it had started offering driverless taxi rides in San Francisco after receiving approval from California regulators.

In a daylong investor presentation last month, G.M.’s chief financial officer, Paul Jacobson, said the company believed Cruise could become a $50 billion business by 2030. “Cruise is an integral part of this and will expand to other cities,” he said. “They’re making really good progress.”

But progress has come much more slowly than originally expected, and some auto companies and investors have grown wary of putting more money into the technology because it may not produce significant sales or profits for years to come. In October, Ford Motor and Volkswagen said they would wind down Argo AI, the autonomous-car company they had invested in.

Cade Metz contributed reporting.

Neal E. Boudette is based in Michigan and has been covering the auto industry for two decades. He joined The New York Times in 2016 after more than 15 years at The Wall Street Journal. More about Neal E. Boudette

Driverless Cars and the Future of Transportation

Autonomous taxis have arrived in car-obsessed Los Angeles, the nation’s second most populous city. But some Angelenos aren’t ready to go driverless .

Cruise, the embattled self-driving car subsidiary of General Motors,  said that it would eliminate roughly a quarter of its work force , as the company looked to rein in costs after an incident led California regulators to shut down its robot taxi operations.

Tesla, the world’s dominant maker of electric vehicles, recalled more than two million vehicles  to address concerns from U.S. officials about Autopilot , the company’s self-driving software.

An Appetite for Destruction: A wave of lawsuits argue that Tesla’s Autopilot software is dangerously overhyped. What can its blind spots teach us about Elon Musk, the company’s erratic chief executive ?

Along for the Ride: Here’s what New York Times reporters experienced during test rides in driverless cars operated by Tesla , Waymo  and Cruise .

The Future of Transportation?: Driverless cars, once a Silicon Valley fantasy, have become a 24-hour-a-day reality in San Francisco . “The Daily” looked at the unique challenges of coexisting with cars that drive themselves .

Stressing Cities: In San Francisco and Austin, Texas, where passengers can hail autonomous taxis, the vehicles are starting to take a toll on city services , even slowing down emergency response times.

A Fast Rise and Fall: Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors, wanted to grow fast. Now, the company faces safety concerns  as it contends with angry regulators, anxious employees and skepticism about the viability of the business .

• Northern Europe & Baltic Sea

Celebrity's Journey to Moscow excursion

By psygist , March 7, 2012 in Northern Europe & Baltic Sea

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I will be in St. Petersburg in June on a Celebrity ship. Having been there previously, we would like to do the Journey to Moscow excursion. Celebrity lists it in the shore excursion brochure for my sail date, but it has not been available for booking on their website.

I have called Celebrity twice and both times was told that even though it is listed in the shore excursion brochure, it probably isn't being offered since it is not listed for pre-booking on the website. I have emailed Celebrity twice and received a different response. They responded that they were still working with the tour provider on the details and is not yet available for pre-booking.

Anyone have any experience with this that could offer some advice? It's frustrating that cruise line agents can be so misinformed and inconsistent in what they tell us.

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I will be in St. Petersburg in June on a Celebrity ship. Having been there previously, we would like to do the Journey to Moscow excursion. Celebrity lists it in the shore excursion brochure for my sail date, but it has not been available for booking on their website. I have called Celebrity twice and both times was told that even though it is listed in the shore excursion brochure, it probably isn't being offered since it is not listed for pre-booking on the website. I have emailed Celebrity twice and received a different response. They responded that they were still working with the tour provider on the details and is not yet available for pre-booking. Anyone have any experience with this that could offer some advice? It's frustrating that cruise line agents can be so misinformed and inconsistent in what they tell us.

Having done this one-day trip to Moscow and back on another cruise while in St. Petersburg, I might be able to share some insight. First, from dealing with some Celebrity folks about Europe options, certain of them are limited in their personal experiences and knowledge about this part of the world. Shouldn't be this way, but it is. They know more on the familiar Carib options as that is what is both closer and for which they get more of their calls/question. If they haven't done it, nor is is clear on their computer screen, they can't be of much help.

Second, that excursion to Moscow has been "evolving" during the past few years as they have switched from doing it by air flights to connection by high-speed rail. On trips like this one that is more costly and highly specialized, you will probably need to "press and push" to reach someone who is more likely to know this somewhat of a "needle in the haystack".

It's sad that you've gotten the "run-around", but sometimes the staff is not as informed and experienced as you would like, expect and need.

Do you need any background info for what you would see and do in Moscow , how it works, etc.???

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

Did a June 7-19, 2011, Solstice cruise from Barcelona that had stops in Villefranche, ports near Pisa and Rome, Naples, Kotor, Venice and Dubrovnik . Enjoyed great weather and a wonderful trip. Dozens of wonderful visuals with key highlights, tips, comments, etc., on these postings. We are now at 68,189 views for this live/blog re-cap on our first sailing with Celebrity and much on wonderful Barcelona. Check these postings and added info at:

http://www.boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1426474

What you said makes perfect sense. Thanks.

I also looked into doing this tour privately, but one tour provider informed me there were no available trains or planes to fit my ship's time in port. We will be there on a weekend so its possible that transportation does not run as frequent. I just wish Celebrity could get their act together and tell me definitively whether they will be offering the Moscow excursion.

Terry, What you said makes perfect sense. Thanks. I also looked into doing this tour privately, but one tour provider informed me there were no available trains or planes to fit my ship's time in port. We will be there on a weekend so its possible that transportation does not run as frequent. I just wish Celebrity could get their act together and tell me definitively whether they will be offering the Moscow excursion. Paul

If your cruise puts you into St. Petersburg on a weekend, that could be another complicating factor. Openings at certain places, rail schedules, etc., could be different for some days of the week. It is possible to do the Moscow trip by some private tour companies, but if there are any weather and/or scheduling complications, that could make things more difficult. Doing it through the cruise ship, makes it "their" problem, not yours!!

Doing the one-day trip to Moscow is very interesting and special. Lots of cruise lines do it now and have the practice down to a "science". BUT, that weekend timing could be delaying their finalization some on schedules.

• 3 weeks later...

I will be in St. Petersburg in June on a Celebrity ship. Having been there previously, we would like to do the Journey to Moscow excursion. Celebrity lists it in the shore excursion brochure for my sail date, but it has not been available for booking on their website.   I have called Celebrity twice and both times was told that even though it is listed in the shore excursion brochure, it probably isn't being offered since it is not listed for pre-booking on the website. I have emailed Celebrity twice and received a different response. They responded that they were still working with the tour provider on the details and is not yet available for pre-booking.   Anyone have any experience with this that could offer some advice? It's frustrating that cruise line agents can be so misinformed and inconsistent in what they tell us.

I was able to book this for a June cruise in the past few days. If you look carefully in the fine print for the excursion, I believe it is because you have to begin the online check-in process since they need your passport/ID information before you can book this excursion. Try to do as much of the online check-in as you can, and I think it should appear for purchase.

It would be nice to know what the actual schedule for the Moscow excursion is. I don't believe it is actually 18.5 hours, but that is just to make sure that you can't book anything else on that day.

I was finally able to book the tour online. They just made it available for online booking the other day. I sure hope they reach the minimum number of guests so it isn't cancelled.

Not sure why it leaves at 9:30. If it indeed is an 18.5 hour tour, we won't get back until 4 am.

I was able to book this for a June cruise in the past few days. If you look carefully in the fine print for the excursion, I believe it is because you have to begin the online check-in process since they need your passport/ID information before you can book this excursion. Try to do as much of the online check-in as you can, and I think it should appear for purchase.   It would be nice to know what the actual schedule for the Moscow excursion is. I don't believe it is actually 18.5 hours, but that is just to make sure that you can't book anything else on that day.

It looks like Celebrity edited the description to say that, for those excursions on a weekend, the actual tour will be shortened by about 2 hours due to less traffic on a weekend.

Terry (or anyone who has been on the Journey to Moscow excursion before):

Can you give me a little detail on the itinerary? The tour description says that we will have a walking tour of Red Square and the Kremlin, as well as visits to the Armoury and one of the Kremlin cathedrals. Was wondering what other Moscow sights we will get to see. Or will the rest be in the form of a panoramic bus tour? Any opportunity for souvenir shopping?

Thanks for any insights you can offer.

• 1 month later...

This was just cancelled for my cruise :( Didn't meet the minimum number of people interested in going.

There might be some options through private tour companies. We used Anastasia for our part in St. Petersburg, but she is doing these Moscow arrangements for friends, two couples, from here in Central Ohio, in late June. I would contact a couple of key, experiences firms such as Anastasia, see what she and others can offer to make this one-day train trip over and back.

Did a June 7-19, 2011, Solstice cruise from Barcelona that had stops in Villefranche, ports near Pisa and Rome, Naples, Kotor, Venice and Dubrovnik . Enjoyed great weather and a wonderful trip. Dozens of wonderful visuals with key highlights, tips, comments, etc., on these postings. We are now at 82,951 views for this live/blog re-cap on our first sailing with Celebrity and much on wonderful Barcelona. Check these postings and added info at:

For details and visuals, etc., from our July 1-16, 2010, Norway Coast/Fjords/Arctic Circle cruise experience from Copenhagen on the Silver Cloud, check out this posting. This posting is now at 70,872 views.

http://www.boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1227923

Which sailing are you on that the Moscow excursion was cancelled? I booked it for my Eclipse cruise June 23 sailing and haven't heard anything

• 2 months later...

soakedbythesea

You have probably figured out now that not only excursions, but many other things aboard ship are misleading, if not downright fraudulent. The ship crew, staff and clerks are all going to do pretty much what they want to, but not only on the Royal Caribbean's Celebrity brand, but almost all cruise ships - the captain can almost get away with murder. Aren't you glad you don't have to work on one of these vessels? Also make sure you don't get involved in any type of dispute, as even some crime gets swept under the ship - well, not all, like the Costa that crashed & tipped over, but not sure even then much will happen, as all passengers signed all their rights away before they got on board.

Hope you have enjoyed your cruise by now and maybe look back here on the board. About the only way to get any knowledge about the ships, excursions, etc. is through sites like this.

As we are sailing a year from now on Celebrity Constellation - Aug 12, we were wondering too about shows aboard, excursions (both ship and private), if you ever got to Moscow, etc. Please write to us at:

john at shifferds dot com - thanks

• 5 months later...

Ywlke,   Which sailing are you on that the Moscow excursion was cancelled? I booked it for my Eclipse cruise June 23 sailing and haven't heard anything

We will be in St. Petersburg in July and want to take Celebrity's tour to Moscow. Please let us know if you liked it or not and how long it was. This is going to be our second time in St. Petersburg but will like to take a private tour on day #2. Did you do something the day after your Moscow tour? We are traveling with our teenagers and worry about them being too tired :rolleyes:

• 6 months later...

Kevin's girl

I thought I would bump this up. We will be on the Brilliance this time next year and are very interested in doing this our. Are there still people out there that have done it? I would love to hear what you thought of the tour, the travel part and what you were able to see while in Moscow. Was it worth the price?

I thought I would bump this up. We will be on the Brilliance this time next year and are very interested in doing this our. Are there still people out there that have done it? I would love to hear what you thought of the tour' date=' the travel part and what you were able to see while in Moscow. Was it worth the price?[/quote'] We just did this tour and really liked it, but this was our second time in St. Petersburg. If this is your first time there I don't know if it's the best choice. You spend most of the day in airports and buses. Our meeting time at the ship was 6:45 AM, followed by a 45 min. long drive to the airport. Then we had to wait for a 10:00 AM one hour flight to Moscow. As you can see we arrived after 11:00 AM followed by another 30 minutes ride to the city. We were taken to the Red Square, to take a subway ride, followed by a coffee and tea break, then to the Kremlin armory museum (where we spend most of our time), also visited the Cathedral of the Annunciation, and back to the Red Square. Were only given half hour for shopping, followed by a really long dinner at a local restaurant. Our flight back to St. Petersburg departed half hour late, arriving at 11:30 PM. It took a while for the bus to pick us up, another 45 min. drive to the port and we were at our rooms by 1:00 AM. This means that if you want to see St. Petersburg the next day, you are going to be really tired. BTW, I'm not complaining, this tour was so popular on our cruise that they had two groups for the first time. Most of my friends were on that group and they had the worst time. Their flight left earlier than ours and although they were taken to more places than us, they ended up on a later flight and arrived in St. Petersburg after 12:30 AM. The problem was that the tour company knew that they were not going to make it on time to the bridges that connect the city to the area where the ship docks. The elevated bridges go up at 1:30 AM in the morning and are taken back after 5:00 AM. Can you believe that our tour guide made fun of the fact that the other bus was not going to make it on time? It was really frustrating for them to watch the bridges go up in front of their eyes. They finally found online a bridge that goes down for periods of 15 min. and were able to go back to the ship after 3:00 AM. Some of them couldn't make it to their tours the next day. Remember, this is Russia, if you don't make it to your tour the next day, you won't be able to leave the ship. My friends tried to take a taxi and catch up with us, but their visa stated a 9:00AM pick up time and had to stay on the ship. We liked our tour, but it is up to you to decide if it's worth it. The time that you actually spend in Moscow is really limited. If by any chance you are given a late flight on your way back, start screaming and demand an earlier flight. The tour company hired by Celebrity is going to buy the cheapest flights to make more money. Just my two cents. I tried to research this tour before our cruise and didn't find too much information. Hope this helps. BTW, I was concern about the planes used for the flights, if you are too, don't be. The flight was great and were even given a sandwich with juice or water. I do have to say that we felt that we were on a PanAm 1970's flight. The attendants were all really young, skinny and beautiful, wore heavy make up and complicated hair styles. I was also not impressed by either St. Petersburg or Moscow's airports. No restrooms close to the gates, two flights leaving at the same time through the same gate, just a mess!! Before our tour I couldn't understand how Edward Snowden could hide for such a long time on an airport, after visiting Moscow's international airport it just made sense. Hope you enjoy your Baltic cruise.

Thanks for the details. I was quite curious about it. Unfortunately it doesn't sound like you got to see so much there. Fortunately as you say it was your second time in SPB, so you can compare and see the differences between the cities. They are very different.

On our Celebrity cruise, it was sold out, but I didn't come across anyone who took the tour to find out their experiences.

drarill, I had to laugh at the comment about how Snowden was able to hide in the airport ... I had wondered the same thing, but now we know!! LOL

We just did this tour and really liked it, but this was our second time in St. Petersburg. If this is your first time there I don't know if it's the best choice. You spend most of the day in airports and buses. Our meeting time at the ship was 6:45 AM, followed by a 45 min. long drive to the airport. Then we had to wait for a 10:00 AM one hour flight to Moscow. As you can see we arrived after 11:00 AM followed by another 30 minutes ride to the city. We were taken to the Red Square, to take a subway ride, followed by a coffee and tea break, then to the Kremlin armory museum (where we spend most of our time), also visited the Cathedral of the Annunciation, and back to the Red Square. Were only given half hour for shopping, followed by a really long dinner at a local restaurant. Our flight back to St. Petersburg departed half hour late, arriving at 11:30 PM. It took a while for the bus to pick us up, another 45 min. drive to the port and we were at our rooms by 1:00 AM. This means that if you want to see St. Petersburg the next day, you are going to be really tired. BTW, I'm not complaining, this tour was so popular on our cruise that they had two groups for the first time. Most of my friends were on that group and they had the worst time. Their flight left earlier than ours and although they were taken to more places than us, they ended up on a later flight and arrived in St. Petersburg after 12:30 AM. The problem was that the tour company knew that they were not going to make it on time to the bridges that connect the city to the area where the ship docks. The elevated bridges go up at 1:30 AM in the morning and are taken back after 5:00 AM. Can you believe that our tour guide made fun of the fact that the other bus was not going to make it on time? It was really frustrating for them to watch the bridges go up in front of their eyes. They finally found online a bridge that goes down for periods of 15 min. and were able to go back to the ship after 3:00 AM. Some of them couldn't make it to their tours the next day. Remember, this is Russia, if you don't make it to your tour the next day, you won't be able to leave the ship. My friends tried to take a taxi and catch up with us, but their visa stated a 9:00AM pick up time and had to stay on the ship. We liked our tour, but it is up to you to decide if it's worth it. The time that you actually spend in Moscow is really limited. If by any chance you are given a late flight on your way back, start screaming and demand an earlier flight. The tour company hired by Celebrity is going to buy the cheapest flights to make more money. Just my two cents. I tried to research this tour before our cruise and didn't find too much information. Hope this helps. BTW, I was concern about the planes used for the flights, if you are too, don't be. The flight was great and were even given a sandwich with juice or water. I do have to say that we felt that we were on a PanAm 1970's flight. The attendants were all really young, skinny and beautiful, wore heavy make up and complicated hair styles. I was also not impressed by either St. Petersburg or Moscow's airports. No restrooms close to the gates, two flights leaving at the same time through the same gate, just a mess!! Before our tour I couldn't understand how Edward Snowden could hide for such a long time on an airport, after visiting Moscow's international airport it just made sense. Hope you enjoy your Baltic cruise.

Thank you for posting your experience. You have given me a lot to think about. It just seemed like a good idea, now I need to think really hard about it. I would hate to have our second day messed up in SPB.

We did Celebrity's Journey to Moscow excursion in July 2012. We had been to St. Petersburg before so decided to do something different. Interestingly, this excursion had been cancelled on some of the previous cruises that summer as a result of not enough people signed up. There were about 20 people on our excursion.

In a nutshell, I recommend the excursion and would do it again, but there are some caveats:

1. I would probably not go to Moscow if this was my first time visiting St. Petersburg. SP is full of wonderful sites so I would spend my two port days there seeing all the city sites, including the Hermitage, as well as visiting one of the palaces outside the city.

2. If you go to Moscow and plan on taking a tour in SP the next day, be aware (as someone else posted) that the tour returns to the ship very late and you might have difficulty getting up early enough the next morning for your SP tour. Our flight didn't land back in SP until after midnight and we were unable to cross the bridges before they rose. We didn't return back to the ship until after 2am, but because we anticipated that this might happen, we booked an afternoon private car in SP. We actually ended up enjoying being out late in SP with the bridges up as our bus and guide drove us around the city late at night and it was a surreal experience, especially during the white nights of summer.

3. We thought the time in Moscow could have been better organized, allowing us more time to see Red Square and the Kremlin buildings, but we were prevented from doing so due to horrendous traffic around Moscow, a very long-winded local tour guide, and too much time spent stopping for a coffee break (which was entirely unnecessary IMO). We also had almost no time to shop and the time spent in Red Square was much too short. Again, I mostly blamed this on our guide who talked too much rather than allowing us free time to wander around. I ditched the guide and our group before we were actually dismissed for free time so that I could wander around Red Square and make a few purchases from a street artist (local art and crafts on the street are of high quality and inexpensive IMO).

4. The dinner, while served in a beautiful, elegant setting, was mediocre at best. Lots of alcohol, but I've had better beef stroganoff in a school cafeteria.

Having provided you with these caveats, I still would take the tour again. It was a fascinating and magical experience. From the very interesting airport and airplane experience, to having the opportunity to visit the Kremlin sites and Red Square, it was worth it for us. It was a whirlwind of a tour, lasting about 18 hours from the time we left the ship until we returned.

I hope this helps others make a decision about this tour.

• 3 years later...

I was finally able to book the tour online. They just made it available for online booking the other day. I sure hope they reach the minimum number of guests so it isn't cancelled.   Not sure why it leaves at 9:30. If it indeed is an 18.5 hour tour, we won't get back until 4 am.

We are on May 21, 2017 Eclipse and want to do the same tour.

There are several trains per day even on weekends and holidays. If it is the weekend I would say you are better off flying as traffic will be a little better than on a weekday especially in the morning. There are probably several flights an hour. The train is modern and comfortable but not especially scenic.

Since you need a visa anyway you could also consider arranging a Moscow tour guide to meet you at the airport and arrange your own transport to Moscow. An airport taxi should be easy to arrange in St Petersburg or use Uber. Aeroflot tickets are easy to buy online.

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