Since General Motors (19459008) acquired the San Francisco self driving-tech developer Cruise in 2016, the Detroit automaker poured more than 8 billion dollars into creating a roboticaxi service. GM has now turned off the spigot.
In a call today with investors, General Motors CEO Mary Barra announced that the company will no longer invest in Cruise or its robotaxi services. GM will combine Cruise’s autonomous efforts with its own teams focusing on driver-assistance technologies. The chief executive stated that the combined team would eventually build “personal” self-driving vehicles.
“Given that it takes a lot of time and money to scale up a robotaxi in a highly competitive market, we believe that combining forces is more efficient and consistent with our priorities for capital allocation,” Barra said during the call.
In an email to WIRED, Cruise CEO Marc Whitten stated that the company and board “are collaborating closely with GM” on next steps.
Cruise has had a turbulent few months. The company operated robotaxi services last fall in San Francisco, Phoenix and Austin, Texas. It was preparing to expand into more cities. In October 2023, Cruise hit a pedestrian in San Francisco who had been thrown from a human-driven car in a hit and run. It was revealed weeks later that Cruise employees had not informed regulators that their vehicle had dragged a pedestrian over 20 feet and seriously injured them. California officials revoked the company’s permit for its autonomous cars to operate in the state. Cruise also halted all operations across the country.
Cruise has never fully recovered from the incident. Critics have said that it was a sign of a flawed safety approach. The robotaxi company paid millions of dollars in fines to federal and state authorities related to the incident. Nine top executives, including the company’s founder and CEO Kyle Vogt, left and GM eventually laid off nearly a fourth of Cruise’s staff. Cruise began limited testing this summer in a few cities but never returned to offering Uber like service.
Barra said to analysts on Tuesday that GM determined that maintaining and deploying a robotaxi fleet was both too expensive and far removed from the manufacturer’s core businesses of building and selling automobiles.
Vogt wrote on X, “In case there was any doubt before, it’s clear now: GM is a bunch dummies.” What’s Next?
Cruise technology is now being used to refine Super Cruise technology, which will perform certain “hands-free driving tasks”–lane changing, emergency braking, and lane keeping–on certain highways. Super Cruise cannot drive “autonomously” so drivers are advised to stay alert.
Eventually GM plans to sell “level 4” cars to car buyers that can drive autonomously in some situations but not on all roads. Barra told analysts that “we know people love to drive their vehicles, but not always.”
General Motors has 90 percent of Cruise, and says that it has reached a deal with other shareholders for more than 97 per cent of the company. GM will “restructure” and “refocus” Cruise in order to achieve this goal, but Barra was unable to say if the new arrangement will lead layoffs.
