DAN AMMAN

The move announced Wednesday by GM-owned Cruise come two months after the company received California's permission to fully driverless cars in the state. “You’re seeing fully driverless technology out of the (research and development) phase and into the beginning of the journey to being a real commercial product," Cruise CEO Dan Ammann said Wednesday. California regulators also recently approved new rules allowing ride-hailing services to pick up passengers in self-driving cars, but Cruise isn't going down that road yet. Instead, Ammann pledged the company will move cautiously while dispatching up to five fully driverless cars into parts of San Francisco initially. Ammann declined to provide a timeline when asked if Cruise planned to use its driverless cars in ride-hailing service within San Francisco next year.

The driverless, electric shuttle, which GM is calling Origin, does not have manual controls such as pedals or a steering wheel. It is a production vehicle," Cruise CEO Dan Ammann said. Tuesday's event comes six months after Cruise delayed the launch of a commercial, self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco, which it had expected to deploy in 2019. Ammann, formerly president of GM, and GM CEO Mary Barra have said the launch of the company's self-driving vehicles would be "gated by safety." On Tuesday, Cruise did not give a specific timeline for start of production for Origin.