General Motors cuts travel sponsorship, ends Robotaxi plan
Since General Motors Acquiring self-driving technology developer Cruise in San Francisco in 2016, the Detroit automaker poured more than $8 billion into creating a robot taxi service. Now GM is turning off the faucet.
On a call with investors today, General motive Chief Executive Mary Barra said the company will no longer invest in Cruise and its robotaxi services. Instead, GM said it will combine Cruise’s efforts on autonomy with its own teams focused on driver-assist features. Ultimately, the combined team will build “personal” autonomous vehicles, the CEO said.
“Given the significant time and cost required to scale a robotaxi business in an increasingly competitive market, combining forces is more efficient and therefore consistent with the company’s priorities,” Barra said. our capital allocation priorities.”
In an emailed statement to WIRED, Cruise CEO Marc Whitten said the company and its board are “working closely with GM on the next steps.”
Cruise has had an uncertain few months. Last fall, the company operated robotaxi services in San Francisco, Phoenix and Austin, Texas and is preparing to launch in more cities. Then, in October 2023, a Cruise vehicle crashed into a pedestrian in San Francisco who was thrown by a human-driven vehicle in a hit-and-run incident. Many weeks later, it appears that Cruise employees failed to disclose to regulators that the company vehicle dragged pedestrians more than 20 feet, seriously injuring them. California officials revoked the company’s license to operate autonomous cars in the state, and Cruise suspended operations across the country.
Cruise never fully recovered from the incident, which critics say points to a flawed approach to safety. The robotaxi company had to pay millions of dollars in fines related to the incident to federal and state authorities. Nine top executives and company founder and CEO Kyle Vogt left, and finally GM laid off nearly a quarter of Cruise’s staff. Cruise began limited testing in some cities this summer but never returned to offering an Uber-like service.
Barra told analysts Tuesday that GM found that deploying and maintaining a robotaxi fleet was both too costly and too far removed from the manufacturer’s core business of building and selling cars.
“In case it wasn’t clear before, it’s clear now: GM is a bunch of idiots,” Vogt posted on Tuesday afternoon X.
What comes next?
The cruise technology will now be used to enhance the company’s Super Cruise technology, which is designed to perform a number of “hands-free” driving tasks — lane keeping, lane changes and emergency braking — on specific highways. Drivers are warned to always be vigilant when using Super Cruise, which cannot drive “autonomously.”
Ultimately, GM intends to sell “level 4” vehicles to auto buyers, cars that can drive fully autonomously on some but not all roads. “We know people everywhere like to drive their own cars, but not in every situation,” Barra told analysts.
General Motors owns 90% of Cruise and said it has reached an agreement with other shareholders to own more than 97% of 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.
