Cruise is planning to return to fully autonomous rides later this year, and charge fares by early 2025, news agencies report, citing people familiar with the matter.

The self-driving unit of General Motors has been working to re-establish itself and regain public trust, following a series of setbacks including regulatory suspension following an incident in 2022 in which a pedestrian was struck and dragged by a robotaxi.

Cruise resumed operations on a smaller scale earlier this year, using human driven vehicles in Phoenix, Arizona. Currently its licence to run autonomous passenger services remains suspended.

The company resumed operations in the US with a small fleet of human-driven vehicles in Phoenix, Arizona this year, but its authority to provide passenger service in autonomous vehicles in California remains suspended.

In a statement given to Reuters, a spokesperson said: "Our continued focus is on rebuilding trust with regulators and improving AV [autonomous vehicle] performance with supervised autonomous testing underway in Phoenix, Dallas and Houston.”

They added they did not have a timeline to share.

GM CEO Mary Barra said she was “very confident” continuing that Cruise “now have the vehicles operating and we’re on the path very quickly to get back to driverless with much safer technology,” during the company’s earnings call earlier this month.