Since General Motors After acquiring San Francisco self-driving-tech developer Cruise in 2016, the Detroit automaker has invested more than $8 billion in building a robotaxi service. Now GM is closing the bottleneck.
On a call with investors today, General Motors CEO Mary Barra said the company would no longer invest in Cruise and its robotaxi services. Instead, GM says it will combine Cruise's efforts on autonomy with its teams focused on driver-assistance features. Ultimately, the combined team will build “personal” autonomous vehicles, the chief executive said.
“Given the considerable time and expense required to scale a robotaxi business in an increasingly competitive market, the combination of forces will be more efficient and therefore consistent with our capital allocation priorities,” Barra said on the call.
In a statement emailed to WIRED, Cruise CEO Mark Whitten said the company and its board are “collaborating closely with GM on next steps.”
Cruz's next few months were uncertain. Last fall, the company was operating robotaxi services in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Austin, Texas and is preparing to launch in more cities. Then, in October 2023, a cruise vehicle hit a pedestrian in san francisco Who was killed in a hit-and-run by a human-powered vehicle. week later, it emerged Cruise employees did not tell regulators that the company vehicle had dragged the pedestrian for more than 20 feet, seriously injuring him. California officials withdrew the company's permit to operate its autonomous cars in the state, and Cruise halted operations nationwide.
Cruise never recovered from the incident, which critics said pointed to a flawed approach to security. The robotaxi company has paid millions in fines to federal and state authorities related to the incident. nine top officials and Company Founder and CEO Kyle Vogt Left, and eventually GM Nearly a quarter of Cruise's employees were laid offCruise began limited testing in a few cities this summer but never again offered Uber-like service.
Barra told analysts Tuesday that GM found that deploying and maintaining robotaxi fleets was too expensive and too far removed from the maker's core business of building and selling cars.
“If it was unclear before, it's clear now: GMs are a bunch of dummies,” Vogt Posted X on Tuesday afternoon.
what comes next
The Cruise technology will now be used to refine the company's Super Cruise technology, which is designed to perform certain “hands-free” driving functions – lane keeping, lane changing and emergency braking – on specific highways. Drivers are cautioned to always be alert when using Super Cruise, which cannot drive “autonomously.”
Ultimately, GM intends to sell car buyers “Level 4” vehicles, which can drive fully autonomously on some but not all roads. “We know people everywhere prefer to drive their own vehicles, but not in every situation,” Barra told analysts.
General Motors owns 90 percent of Cruise and says it has reached an agreement with other shareholders to take a greater 97 percent stake in the company. GM will “restructure and refocus” Cruise as part of the effort, but Barra could not say whether the new arrangement would lead to layoffs.