Cruise, a self-driving know-how firm majority owned by Common Motors, will broaden its fledgling robotaxi service to 2 extra U.S. cities within the coming months, CEO Kyle Vogt mentioned final week in a Twitter publish.

He mentioned Cruise robotaxis with a supervisor behind the wheel will begin driving in Dallas and Houston inside days, and that the service will go dwell within the subsequent few months.

Cruise’s robotaxi service was launched in early 2022 in San Francisco, the place the corporate is headquartered, and rapidly expanded to Austin and Phoenix later that 12 months.

Whereas the service now operates across the clock in San Francisco, in different areas it’s restricted within the hours it may function. It additionally is proscribed to routes that reduce dangerous maneuvers, like pulling out into site visitors. The service will possible even be rolled out in a restricted vogue within the new cities.

The robotaxis are nonetheless based mostly on the Chevrolet Bolt EV, although Cruise plans to ultimately add a devoted automobile often called the Origin, prototypes for that are being examined.

Cruise’s self-driving system ranks at Degree 4 on the SAE scale of self-driving functionality, as it’s restricted in areas by which it function. The ultimate purpose is Degree 5, the place a self-driving automobile is ready to function on the similar degree as a human.

Whereas Degree 5 could be a decade or extra away, a handful of firms are already providing business providers involving Degree 4 vehicles. Along with Cruise, Waymo has been working a robotaxi service in Phoenix and San Francisco for the previous few years, and is at present testing the service in Los Angeles. In the meantime, China’s Baidu continues to broaden its Apollo Go service in Chinese language cities.