Cruise Automation, the General Motors subsidiary devoted to the development of autonomous vehicle (AV) technology, just revealed Cruise Origin, GM’s first truly driverless car. Critically, Origin isn’t just a concept – this thing is actually intended for full production status.
The Cruise Origin driverless car is roughly the same size as a traditional crossover utility vehicle, with a boxy body and two-tone color scheme. Ingress is achieved via an exterior-mounted keypad, which activates two sliding doors that part down the middle.
Interior space is abundant. Thanks to Origin’s all-electric, driverless car technology, the layout is devoted entirely to comfort. There’s no internal combustion engine or hood to get in the way, plus no pedals, no steering wheel, or anything else to manually pilot the vehicle. Rather, there’s just two two opposing bench seats to accommodate passengers, and a few ceiling-mounted screens providing info on things like the trip itinerary – all of which is useful in a ride-sharing application.
The Cruise Origin driverless car has been in the works for more than three years, and was designed from the ground-up as a completely autonomous, self-driving vehicle, as opposed to a vehicle retrofitted with autonomous technology, as we’ve seen previously with various Chevrolet Bolts.
GM owns about two thirds of Cruise, but Honda has also invested in the company. With regard to Origin, GM did the vehicle design and the electric powertrain, while Honda tackled the interior. Cruise Automation is responsible for the driverless car tech and software.
By the time it goes into production, Cruise says Origin will have core AV software that can best an average human driver in terms of performance and safety. What’s more, the vehicle is engineered to last a million miles, with numerous replaceable parts, from interior components, to sensors, to the onboard computer, thus lowering the average cost per mile.
It’s currently unclear when Cruise Origin will launch, but when it does, it may well be the first truly driverless car in production.
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Comments
Will the public be able to buy one?
Will the public want to buy one?
Looks like a fleet vehicle for Lyft and Uber.
It’s a fleet vehicle for Cruise.
Cruise and GM will be selling these cars to many different fleet owners.
I see it as a fleet vehicle for Avis, Hertz, or Hilton Hotels. I can see it taking the place of the shuttle vans that ferry folks from the airport to their hotel or the rental car counter.
It doesn’t look like the type of vehicle folks would buy for personal transportation.
Because GM is sssooooo far behind when it comes to EV and self-driving tech.
Where have I heard that before?
Unfortunately, most car buyers don’t care about that. They are more concerned about what they can buy in the showrooms today.
Yes, they are, regardless of the tech or lack thereof as putting an elec. motor and large battery in a car is not new or a technical achievement. But the commercials sure make buyers feel all warm and cozy, especially when they watch them post purchase.
Jaguar, Ford even Chrysl… sorry! Fiat Chrysl… SORRY! FCA+PSA (to be determined) and others have put the aforementioned into a car.
Do we still consider that simi-HEMI engine company American?
NO my answer is no, no I do NOT consider FCA+blah, blah, blah+RAM and American auto company !
Yet if someone could prove to me that the largest % of income from said blah company, is spent in the USA I would change my mind !
And I am talking largest % as ALL money SPENT in the USA, like workers and ALL income in the USA !
I have been one of those GM is sssooooo far behind guys. And frankly still am.
If there is one thing we know GM is not far behind on, it ability to show the public something that simply will never happen in real life.
Did you want me to go through the list of awesome GM concepts that when get close to production either look nothing like the concept, are simply never built, or GM releases a half a$$ed version, fixes it in 3 years and kills it in year 4.
I really sincerely wish GM was at least equal to the competition here, yet just because a 110 year old automotive company can show pictures of a vehicle they built driving on a street with no people walking, where in another picture there is one person sitting on a bench, and the other looking in the vehicle while stopped with the door open, does not prove to me, GM has gone anywhere in this tech !
How does this release of useless information make you believe GM/Cruise can do anything other than build a unique looking vehicle ?
Even if this starts out to be a shuttle service, that’s ok, but until I can personally step into one of these and ride around, where there are people, we as US citizens are sssoooo far away from this on a busy city street.
You’ll only see this at Disneyland anytime soon. Maybe Arizona might allow some limited low-speed trials.
Regulators aren’t ready for this, and regulations certainly aren’t. This is going to be shuttle craft at amusement parks, convention centers, etc. And it will be very successful there, but it’s not ready for general sales yet. It’ll possibly take a half decade for regulators to green light it on public roads as a non-test car.
“Cruise says Origin will have core AV software that can best an average human driver in terms of performance and safety.”
Imagine a lawmaker having to answer to a dead person’s family for green lighting an AV car with slightly better than “average human driver” abilities. Gotta be better than that. It has to be as good as the best driver, or there needs to be a backup driver.
Is there a luggage compartment? That’ll be necessary if they’re planning on using these for ride sharing duties.
This is nothing more than “personalized public transportation”…attempting what Public Transportation has failed to master the past 90 years.
My city has a totally unbearable, generally incompetent and perpetually bankrupt public transit system. While the subways often are reliable, the buses and streetcars are not. Fares keep increasing and service continues its downward spiral in quality. Artwork at subway stations and fancy bus stops and bus lanes are a priority. Being publicly run and unionized, the transit system has no incentive to improve (or turn a profit).
My dream is for fleets of Cruise, Uber and Waymo vehicles to zip along the streets for reasonable prices, delivering you door to door, not just bus stop to bus stop. One or two years of empty buses would force the city to re-evaluate its commitment to public transit. I think this is the future of mass transit. Just as Uber blazed a trail to supplant the taxi system, I think these “robot taxis” have the same capacity to significantly improve city transit systems and traffic congestion. Viva la revolucion!
Exactly my thoughts, it could work for sprawled out cities like Houston and Atlanta where bus and train routes do not go to many parts of the city.
Yawwwwnnnnnnnn….
Like some here agree, and others here are GM dreamers, if you are a tech person, you know this tech. You have friends or relatives in the industry doing it, programming it.
The us military has Munitions systems that have to be calibrated to hit a nickel at 4 miles. The aerospace industry has guidance systems to control aircraft all over the globe. Yet there is one thing neither have to deal with, somewhat, is human life, Look at Boeing once again, where did that guidance system success end up ? We are not even sure yet ! And that is a plane in the sky !! Nobody is stepping out in front of a plane, or a rocket propelled shell !!
So I do agree with the technology here, I do agree this very thing is possible, but for sure in the USA this is sssooooo far off, just from a legal standpoint. Maybe this should just be another GM China venture, With a China style government, the government will mandate what is the best for the people, not the people themselves, and it seems to me the Chinese government is ok with a few people getting run over while they accidentally stepped in front of one of these vehicles, and for sure would not be able to sue anyone, unlike the USA.
The competition between Cruise, Waymo and Uber, not to mention smaller startups, is so fierce, that surely they will solve the technical and safety problems to ensure first-to-market access and global dominance. Like Uber and Lyft’s philosophy: Governments and laws be damned, give the ppl what they want.
The 1985 X-cars (Citation, Omega, Phoenix..) after the launch of those bad lemons earlier they’re driverless by then……
Cruise is the future of GM. As we witness more auto consolidation expect a merger with Honda. The partnership on this car is a dry run for the next era of transportation.
Chevrolet, Buick and Cadillac loose share each year in N America so such a tie up/rebranding makes sence long-term anyway.
I am not sure I believe that yet. Although GM once again in its history, is just a 110 year old automaker ran by old, cheap, narrowminded people ! GM after becoming the largest automaker in the world, could have stayed at that status. Yet just like ALL of the OLD US legacy companies, the people in charge of the future investment and future advancements, pulled back, took the old road, screwed over their very own forward thinkers do to being to cheap to see the forest through the trees !
While other countries and the truly talented people forged their way to true future success, GM is STILL just getting smaller and smaller, do to the OLD thinking of the OLD investor! Even at the GM engineering level, after 110 years, GM is blaming transmission troubles on their very own customer. GM must not even be able to hire an engineer today that can build a 100 year old transmission, yet alone promote a worldly vehicle vision of future products.
GM could have easily been the Tesla of transportation, yet like I said GM is still trying to figure out how to make a ICE vehicle drive down the road without transmission troubles, and Tesla is trying to figure out how to fly humans to outer space !
There is a long, long list of these people GM has had work in their business, yet forced most to the curb as to prove the very point the GM could NOT truly do it without them.
From Tesla to DeLorean to Iacocca to Gates to Jobs to Lutz to Musk to JDN, there have been plenty of people in the USA capable of doing great things, Yet the old cheap, O so cheap, depression era investor, STILL TODAY in the USA, stifles true human advancement growth, even at their very own demise !
My guess is, the old GM investor will soon just pull out, as they seem to be OK that they get the GM dividend income, when they die, the following generation is done with GM, including myself. there is simply NOTHING GM is doing today that would make me invest there, as I deal with 110 year old crap, built by GM !
Unless our Government makes it impossible, GM too will be bought by a Chinese group, somewhat like Volvo, and they will just continue to take boomers money until that generation is done with the money bleed of ” old junk ” as the real world sees it !
And so goes all of the old junk companies of the USA !
Like I have said here before, if GM could do any of what they say, they would be doing it like others are !
Yet there is ALWAYS someone to blame !
IMO.
Wonder what’ll it do when leaving a “Cars and Coffee” event…
“Hi Cruise, please do a burnout leaving the parking lot.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,…..Boris.”
gm shares are rocketing to 0% today after the news.
So, no one wants to drive a GM car now?
Mary, “Well, we are losing market share because no one wants to buy and drive our cars. So let’s make a GM car that no one can drive.” Brillant.
It’s just a small bus without a driver. You sit next to people you don’t know, and have to stop by their workplace or house before you get dropped off…
…If it doesn’t crash, of course.
Dandy!
No steering wheel or controls mean General Motors is taking full responsibility of any accident which is shocking given that their self-driving Cruise vehicles routinely get confused with what they’re supposed to do in highly congested streets and still require human interaction.
“Passengers” will likely be required to agree to a series of usage terms and conditions before they can “book” passage on one of these. Which is fine.
If that’s too much risk, then one needs to learn to drive and be accountable for one’s skill and actions. (…or impose upon their Friends (aka Sheldon Cooper) to drive them to where they need to go.)
Life is all about choices…
That may be true, but what about the people outside the Organ that may be injured, maimed, or killed by it?
@ Omegatalon…It’s amusing how many down votes one can get from stating truth, humor, or, a positive message. People are weird.
Here, have another one👍
This and or Tesla Cybrtaxi vehicles will be a great side Business for some.
Obviously most will be Fleet sales to Uber and Lyft.
The Cruise Origin will most likely start in Big Cities first so Tesla will have a bigger lead when the Government will Finally allow Full Autonomy simply because all Tesla needs to do is download the Software in their cars over the Air and then they will have potentially Half a Million vehicles on all cities and streets. It will take Cruise and others a while to catch up.
This makes great sense for Cruise and in my onion Cruise could become worth more money than GM is worth now all by themselves if GM spins them off.
On a side note, did anyone happen to see the Two Minute Promotional Video that Cruise released prior to the reveal?
Big Oil cannot be Happy about that one Lol.
GM has no intention in selling these vehicles to the public or anyone else, GM, is gearing up their own ride hailing business. The coming decades will prove to show a decline (easy everyone, i’m talking for all manufacturers) in global auto sales.
Momolos, Cruise will never be “spun off”, it may on the other hand become GM’s cash cow. Witch would be a good thing, every corporation needs “cash cows”. Sony had the Walkman, the camcorder, and to a point laptops and TV’s. Yes, they missed the fast ball on cell phones, and the rest is history.
“Machete Marry” as she is known by some (GM haters) is in the batters box and she knows that a fast ball is just as dangerous as curve ball, you just have to be on top your game if you want to hit it out of the park.
https://www.hybridcars.com/gms-mary-barra-updates-analysts-on-maven-and-autonomous-driving-tests/
@fastyle
I pretty much agree with everything you stated. I do however see Cruise or GM I guess selling these to Uber and Lyft at some point down the road. Some Auto maker will need too so why not GM.
How much will the first self-driving cruise cost, in ballpark figure when marketed in early 2023?
Are they going to market a regular midsize sedan as well in 2023?