Self-driving robotaxis from GM subsidiary Cruise will appear on the streets of only a single city once operations resume, the autonomous vehicle company said on the day before Thanksgiving in an email to its employees.
For at least the time being, this represents a significant retreat from the previous Cruise strategy of rapid expansion that saw its AVs accepting fares, testing, or preparing to test on the streets of 13 cities in America, Automotive News reports.
Further underlining the uncertainty of its future, Cruise did not specify which metropolitan area its self-driving vehicles would resume operations in, how many would be deployed, or when the new plans would go into effect.
The news comes as GM suspended production of the Cruise Origin, the driverless all-electric robotaxi it built from the ground up as a lower-cost, more spacious replacement for its current modified Chevy Bolt EV autonomous vehicles. No Origin production at all will occur in 2024, and no plan is currently in place to resume production of the model at a future date.
A Cruise representative stated that the subsidiary will “focus on the Bolt-based Cruise AVs in the near term,” while looking toward “a longer-term strategy around the Origin.”
Cruise has suffered a series of major setbacks starting when the California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended its driverless operations in late October. The suspension followed an accident in which a human-driven vehicle hit a pedestrian and threw them under a Cruise AV, which then attempted to pull over and dragged the pedestrian a short distance before stopping.
The GM subsidiary briefly continued running its fleet with human safety drivers on board to provide “supervised” rides, but then halted those operations as well. The founder and CEO of the driverless vehicle enterprise, Kyle Vogt, resigned several days ago, with Daniel Kan, co-founder and CPO, handing in his resignation the following day.
Meanwhile, American officials are assuring the public they will do everything in their power to make future self-driving vehicle deployments safe for others sharing the road.
Subscribe to GM Authority for more GM Cruise news, GM AV news, GM technology news, GM EV news, and around-the-clock GM news coverage.
Comments
Mary Barra and GM are the modern era luddites, fighting progress all the way. Stop fighting progress, stop hiding UltraCruie and get it out now!
One city too many
Dad warned me about spending good money after bad. Evidently, Mary had no such caution.
Over 7000 pedestrians in the US were killed by automobiles with human drivers in 2022. There were over 40,000 fatalities i the US from human drivers in 2022. GM should be applauded for working to use technology to reduce traffic deaths. Certainly there is the potential of accidents and injuries and deaths with the implementation of new technology, but that risk may be offset by the long-term benefits to society. I have experienced using Cruise multiple times in Austin Texas and found it to be convenient, safe and fun.
I hope Austin Texas is the one city that continues to operate Cruise.
You would not feel that way if the injuries/deaths caused by one of these drones happened to somebody you cared about.
I don’t want a robot to drive me around real simple they can hack into computers anywhere and everywhere who’s to say they don’t start hacking into cars and using them as weapons and you’ll play hell trying to figure out who did it