Cruise, General Motors’ autonomous driving technology arm, has tapped Pereira O’Dell for advertising duties following the agency’s pitch.
According to Natalie Nymark, Pereira O’Dell’s west coast lead, the advertising agency will ramp up its work for Cruise next year, as reported by a recent post from Ad Age. An unnamed spokeswoman for Cruise confirmed it will be working with Pereira O’Dell in 2022 as the semi-autonomous tech company moves from R&D efforts towards commercialization.
Cruise is working towards launching a self-driving ride sharing service. The service includes Cruise Origin, an all-electric, driverless vehicle fitted with two opposing bench seats to accommodate passengers. The cabin of the vehicle also includes ceiling-mounted screens to provide passengers with critical information, such as the trip itinerary. Cruise debuted the new Cruise Origin driverless taxi in January of the 2020 calendar year.
Back in June, California approved an application allowing Cruise to give rides to the public using the company’s autonomous prototypes. The application does not allow Cruise to charge for the rides, and the autonomous vehicles must be remotely linked to a safety operator. However, of the eight autonomous vehicle companies allowed to operate driverless vehicles on public roads in the Golden State, Cruise is the first allowed to offer the public rides.
Competitors in this space are many, and include Argo AI (backed by Ford and Volkswagen), Waymo (backed by Alphabet), and Zoox (backed by Amazon), among others. In addition to transporting passengers, the technology is also in development for the transport of goods.
As GM Authority covered previously, production of the first batch of pre-production Cruise Origin AVs ramped up at GM’s Pre-Production operations center over the summer, with the prototypes intended for testing and validation purposes. It’s expected that tens of thousands of units will be produced at the GM Factory Zero plant (formerly Detroit-Hamtramck), with full series production ramping up in 2022 or 2023.
Cruise is considered one the best-funded automated driving companies in the world, with a valuation over $30 billion.
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Comments
they’ve got a herculean task in front of them. good luck.
This is cool technology, I am excited to seat develop going forward, I see Cruise and Waymo autonomous cars almost every day, its funny to see cars without drivers in them.
This is a solution to a problem that does not exist. No amount of marketing will get me to ride in one of those ugly things.