Cruise Automation Inc., the self-driving car startup General Motors Co. acquired for “north of $1 billion” in 2016, has hit the streets of San Francisco with a beta test of a self-driving taxi service.

The new service, called “Cruise Anywhere,” is initially being tested by company employees and involves the use of a dedicated app and a fleet of self-driving Chevrolet Bolt EVs. The service is being tested seven days a week between 16 and 24 hours a day. Employees can book a car for any purpose, allowing Cruise to evaluate how people use a self-driving taxi service both for work and pleasure.

“We’ve always said we’d launch first with a ride share application, and this is in line with that and just further evidence of that,” Cruise Chief Executive Officer Kyle Vogt said in an interview with TechCrunch. “We’re really excited about how the technology is evolving, and the rate at which it’s evolving. This is a manifestation of that – putting the app in people’s hands and having them use it for the first time and make AVs their primary form of transportation.”

Like similar trials by other companies in the past, Cruise’s self-driving cars do require a safety driver behind the seat at all times who can take control of the vehicle should the technology fail. But the company claims that the drivers are rarely needed to take over.

Cruise’s decision to deploy an active self-driving taxi service to the streets of San Francisco makes it the first company to operate a service of this kind in the city, a rather odd development given that San Francisco, along with Silicon Valley to the south, hosts the headquarters of the some of the world’s largest tech companies, including leading self-driving car makers such as Waymo Inc. and Uber Technologies Inc.

The trial is currently limited to 20 Cruise employees, though the company is looking to expand it over time, with the eventual aim of opening testing to the broader public.

Photo: Cruise/Twitter