General Motors’ driverless vehicle division, Cruise, has begun on-road testing in San Francisco.

It announced back in October that it’d been given a permit to test, and was planning to begin the trials before the end of the year.

Forbes reports that it’s achieved this with about three weeks to spare, and that it is a “big deal” for the company.

The magazine says that according to several sources, Cruise had to renegotiate some of those funding agreements to revise development milestones including the first driverless tests on open roads. At this time, Cruise isn’t saying exactly how much of San Francisco its vehicles are covering without safety operators beyond “a few neighbourhoods.” 

The first driverless runs in the city were livestreamed to Cruise employees and an excerpt has been posted on Youtube.

(Picture credit – Cruise)