Robotaxi Cruise vehicles are making a return but they won’t be autonomous [Video]

(KRON) — After a monthslong hiatus from operations, Cruise vehicles will return to America’s streets. The first city to see the robotaxi vehicles back on its roadways will be Phoenix, the company announced Tuesday in a news release.

The vehicles will not, however, be autonomous. Instead, the cars will have human drivers — a move that is reportedly intended to help Cruise create maps and gather road information to improve safety for when autonomous vehicles do return, the company said.

Cruise dubbed it the “next step” in its mission to have driverless vehicles back on the streets.

If the manual-driving-vehicle reboot in Phoenix is successful, Cruise will assess and plan to expand its efforts in other U.S. cities. Having manual-driving vehicles cruising around the city is a “critical step” for the advancement of Cruise’s self-driving technology, the company says.

Last October, Cruise pulled all of its driverless carsoff the streets nationwide. This came weeks after a woman in …