Cruise Robotaxis Were All Over San Francisco--and Poised to Go National. California Just Banned Them.

The robotaxi company Cruise has been revving up for rapid growth. In August, California regulators granted carte blanche to the outfit in San Francisco, where its CEO has envisioned deploying 10 times more robotaxis than the several hundred it operated this summer. Meanwhile, Cruise, which is majority-owned by General Motors, announced expansions into a dozen other U.S. cities including Austin, Charlotte, Houston, Raleigh, and Washington. California just forced Cruise to hit the brakes. On Tuesday, the state's Department of Motor Vehicles suspended Cruise's permits to deploy driverless vehicles statewide.