As GM Authority has been religiously following, the fallout of the October 2023 incident where a Cruise AV unit trapped a pedestrian underneath it after they were struck by a human-driven vehicle has been all-encompassing, as General Motors’ self-driving subsidiary has seen its operating budget slashed and trust from the general public wane. Of course, the repercussions have affected Cruise Origin models as well, and now, it appears as though some units of the purpose-built autonomous vehicle are being stored at a defunct GM facility.
According to a report from Autopian, carriers with Cruise Origin robotaxis in tow were spotted on their way to the currently closed GM Grand Blanc Tooling Center in Michigan. Upon arrival, the self-driving vehicles appear to be piled up against one another, suggesting that The General is storing these Origins for future use.
Image taken from social media
“These are the Origins built at GM’s Factory Zero in 2023,” a Cruise spokesperson explained. “With the rescaling and retiming of Cruise’s operations we will not be deploying Origins this year. They are being stored at GM’s facility in Grand Blanc as there is not enough space at Factory Zero. These vehicles will be used for future AV engineering, development, manufacturing and education.”
It’s worth noting that the GM Grand Blanc facility was shuttered in 2013.
As a reminder, production of the Cruise Origin AVs was halted in November 2023 due to the aforementioned accident, and was part of the Cruise’s overarching efforts to pause all autonomous driving activities across the United States. At the time, then-CEO Kyle Vogt claimed that hundreds of Origin examples had already been manufactured, and would thus suffice for development needs at that time.
Interestingly, production of the Origin units had only been kickstarted a few months prior at the GM Factory Zero plant in Michigan.
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Comments
My phone works flawlessly probably >90% of the time that things don’t matter.
However, if I need it to work right now and quickly, that number drops to probably <10%.
No matter how “perfect” they get these things, there is going to be something that doesn’t work at the worst possible time.
That being said…why is it not called Origin AEV? It must be an ICE vehicle then since it’s so hard to not know without an E somewhere in the name.
Hopefully these ugly pieces of crap rot there.
Yes, hopefully. After hopefully you get trapped under one of them and then you both roth there.
I know you’re heartbroken because a dirk like you dreamed of this being your and your family’s primary mode of transportation on a daily basis, but it’s time to man up and drive yourself places like the rest of the adults in this country
These shuttles didn’t meet any of the NHTSA safety requirements. The Cruise based units are based on fully compliant vehicles so the Origin needed extensive exemptions which were not obtained. I’m amazed GM built any of them since they didn’t have a chance in h.ll of ever being authorized to operate on public roads.
Be careful, Mike up there would disagree with you.
Saw a trailer hauling two up 75 last week.
We locals still call it the Tank Plant.
Another GM money pit that everyone outside of GM knew would never work.