General Motors’ (GM’s) autonomous car subsidiary, Cruise, has announced plans to test its autonomous vehicles in Seattle (Washington) and Washington DC.

Initial testing in the cities will be done using manually driven vehicles to familiarize the driving environment. The vehicles in Seattle will operate in parts of downtown Seattle, Capitol Hill, Queen Anne, Fremont, the University District, and West Seattle.

The company also needs to obtain a permit from the Seattle Department of Transportation through its “Autonomous Vehicle Testing Permit program” before it can start testing in Seattle. The company has not confirmed such an application to authorities yet.

Analyst QuickTake: Cruise has been strategically augmenting its geographical presence at a notable pace in recent weeks. Such expansions include launching the tests in Miami (Florida), Nashville (Tennessee), Los Angeles (California), Atlanta (Georgia) , Charlotte (North Carolina), San Diego (California), and Raleigh (North Carolina) , bringing its operations to 14 cities in the US in total. However, Cruise currently has commercial operations in only three cities: San Fransisco, Austin, and Phoenix. On a separate note, Cruise’s competitor and Amazon’s autonomous car subsidiary, Zoox, currently holds the permit to deploy self-driving vehicles (with a safety driver on board) in Seattle and began testing the same in the city in October 2021.