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GM Kills Cruise Robotaxi Business, After Funding Is Pulled
- General Motors has halted the funding of its Cruise autonomous vehicle division and will refocus its development on personal vehicles. GM will realign its autonomous driving strategy and prioritise the development of advanced driver assistance systems to fully autonomous personal vehicles while combining the majority-owned Cruise LLC and GM technical teams into a single effort to advance autonomous and assisted driving. GM will no longer fund Cruise's robotaxi development work given the considerable time and resources that would be needed to scale the business, along with an increasingly competitive robotaxi market.
- GM had acquired control of San Francisco-based Cruise automation for $581m back in 2016, but development of the service has been slow and had issues with regulatory red tape and a notable accident in 2023 when one of its autonomous Chevrolet Bolts dragged a San Francisco pedestrian who had been struck by a separate hit and run vehicle.
- GM has invested $2.4 billion in Cruise over the years, but the firm has racked up more than $10 billion in operating losses since 2016 while bringing in less than $500 million in revenue.
- GM intends to combine the majority-owned Cruise LLC and GM technical teams into a single effort to advance autonomous and assisted driving. GM will no longer fund Cruise's robotaxi development work given the considerable time and resources that would be needed to scale the business, along with an increasingly competitive robotaxi market.
- It will now develop partially automated driver-assist systems for personal vehicles, such as its Super Cruise, which allows drivers to take their hands off the steering wheel.
- GM currently owns 90% of Cruise, and it will retain a presence in San Francisco.
- Companies such as Uber and Lyft have halted their own in-house robotaxi development activities. In October 2022, Ford disbanded its Argo AI autonomous vehicle venture in Pittsburgh that it co-owned with Volkswagen.
- Competition includes the likes of Alphabet's Waymo, which has spent most of 2024 expanding its service in certain locations in America, citing “growing demand”.
- Tesla, meanwhile, is seeking to launch a rival “Cybercab” service by 2026, but analysts doubt its ability to compete with Waymo.
- Another robotaxi service, Amazon's Zoox, is hoping to begin offering driverless rides to the general public in Las Vegas at some point next year before launching in San Francisco.
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