Since General Motors bought San Francisco self-driving tech developer Cruise in 2016, the Detroit automaker has spent more than $8 billion creating a robot taxi service. Now GM turns off the tap.
On a call with investors today, General Motors CEO Mary Barra said the company would no longer invest in Cruise and its robot taxi services. Instead, GM says it will combine Cruise’s autonomy efforts with its own teams focused on driver assistance features. Eventually, 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 would be more efficient and therefore consistent with our capital allocation priorities,” Barra said on the call.
In a statement sent to WIRED, Cruise CEO Marc Whitten said the company and its board are “working closely with GM on next steps.”
Cruise had an uncertain few months. Last fall, the company operated robotaxi services in San Francisco, Phoenix and Austin, Texas, and was preparing to launch in more cities. Then, in October 2023, a cruise vehicle hit a San Francisco pedestrian who had been thrown by a human-powered vehicle in a hit-and-run. Weeks later, it emerged that Cruise employees had failed to disclose to regulators that the company’s vehicle had dragged the pedestrian more than 20 feet, seriously injuring them. California officials pulled the company’s license to operate its autonomous cars in the state, and Cruise halted operations nationwide.
Cruise never fully recovered from the incident, which critics say pointed to a flawed approach to security. The Robotaxi company has paid millions in fines related to the incident to federal and state authorities. Nine top executives and company founder and CEO Kyle Vogt left, and eventually GM laid off nearly a quarter of Cruise’s employees. Cruise began limited testing in a handful of cities this summer, but never returned to offering Uber-like service.
Barra told analysts Tuesday that GM found that deploying and maintaining a robot taxi fleet is both 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: GM is a bunch of dummies,” Vogt wrote on X Tuesday afternoon.
What comes next
Cruise technology will now be used to refine the company’s Super Cruise technology, which is designed to perform some “hands-free” driving tasks – lane keeping, lane changes and emergency braking – on specific highways. Drivers are warned to always pay attention while using Super Cruise, which cannot drive “autonomously”.
Eventually, GM intends to sell “Level 4” vehicles to car buyers that can drive fully autonomously on some, but not all, roads. “We know that people everywhere love to drive their own vehicles, but not in all situations,” Barra told analysts.
General Motors owns 90 percent of Cruise and says it has reached an agreement with other shareholders to own more than 97 percent 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.