General Motors has announced that it will no longer pursue its robotaxi efforts, instead opting to refocus its autonomous vehicle technology on personal vehicles. The move is expected to save a significant amount of capital expenditure, while allowing the continued development of Super Cruise, the company’s hands-free semi-autonomous driving feature. Further information, including details on a restructuring effort and how the move will affect GM’s autonomous tech partners, is expected with the company’s next earnings report.
“GM is committed to delivering the best driving experiences to our customers in a disciplined and capital efficient manner,” said GM CEO Mary Barra. “Cruise has been an early innovator in autonomy, and the deeper integration of our teams, paired with GM’s strong brands, scale, and manufacturing strength, will help advance our vision for the future of transportation.”
GM currently owns roughly 90 percent of Cruise, and has agreements in place with other shareholders that will increase ownership to over 97 percent. GM expects to work alongside the tech company’s leadership team in a restructuring effort that will refocus operations on personal vehicle applications, while executives Marc Whitten, Mohamed Elshenawy, and Craig Glidden will remain onboard.
The result of this effort is expected to lower spending by over $1 billion annually, with completion projected by the first half of the 2025 calendar year. GM has already invested over $10 billion into Cruise.
During a conference call with media, GM stated that pursuing the robotaxi business was unsustainable “given the considerable time and resources that would be needed to scale the business, along with an increasingly competitive robotaxi market.”
As GM Authority reported in July, GM has indefinitely paused production of the Cruise Origin robotaxi. A fleet of Origin robotaxis was spied in storage at the Milford Proving Ground in September.
GM currently offers its Super Cruise semi-autonomous driver assist system on over 20 models, logging over 10 million miles every month.
“As the largest U.S. automotive manufacturer, we’re fully committed to autonomous driving and excited to bring GM customers its benefits – things like enhanced safety, improved traffic flow, increased accessibility, and reduced driver stress,” said senior vice president of software and services engineering Dave Richardson.
Comments
Too bad they never did the ipo, could have made money. Should cost Mary her job
If Mary didn’t need to “Control” everything, the autonomous business could have been split off as a separate business and likely would have been infused with investor cash and been a viable business that could license technology to others. But, because of the fear of not controlling it, it will just be another 10 – 15 Billion Dollar waste. This is just one of many missteps in the Pipe dream of GM becoming a technology company instead of a car company.
Inevitable. Cruise lying to the DMV and rushing to scale never helped their cause. GM is smart to put capital into their own vehicles from here. Not sure about the future of Cruise but truly hope they can succeed on their own.
This autonomous vehicle nonsense is nothing but a fantasy that will never happen in our generation. I’d rather they put that money into improving the EV and ICEs before this useless endeavor that won’t amount to anything beyond a fancy cruise control system.
It’s already happening. I’ve taken several Waymo paid rides and it works fine. Everyone in SF is on board now after some initial freak out last year. New use cases abound. Parents are sending their kids to school in them b/c they don’t have to worry about a rapist driver. This is a huge loss for GM to have gone this far and walk away from it so close to the finish line.
That has always been and always will be the true General Motors way…
Autonomous vehicle was ever a non sense since the 1960ies
Good move.
For a change.
Good. More money for V8s!
Good riddance to another one of Mary’s vanity projects.
Now resign like Carlos and go away.
Can we spend a little extra on adding some colors, interior and exterior, and option packages to each model now?
Not sure dropping the endeavor completely is a good idea. AV’s will eventually happen, although maybe not for another decade, and seems like GM should be ready for it.
But I guess if they can take the technology developed so far and apply it to SuperCruise, maybe not a total loss.
They another 3 or 4 decades. One accident resulting in death will take the movement back years.
If GM is smart they should be the first to license FSD from Tesla
Then GM can just concentrate on designing ride sharing PODS for mass scale.
GM can definitely produce vehicles at scale but not cutting edge software.
Tesla’s FSD is one of the dumber “self-driving” systems out there as it only relies on cameras and NOT redundant systems like LiDAR and GPS. There’s a reason why no other companies have licensed it themselves.
I will be happy for that GM CEO to finally get the ax after almost 11 years.
So what’s going to happen to the fleet of Cruise Origins currently parked at GM’s Grand Blanc Tank Plant? Hello, crusher!
Correction: “GM has already wasted over $10 billion on Cruise.”
Just imagine if that $10 billion had been spent on better powertrains and vehicles that customers actually want to buy!
For sure all go scrapped liked they did with EV1… USA is good in wasting money
What does GM think it will spend in F1?? GM will walk away from F1 also in a few years.
I’ve had Super Cruise in two vehicles. It’s outstanding.
I’ve test driven Teslas with Full Self Driving. It’s incredible.
I hope Super Cruise evolves quickly to operate similar to FSD.
gm gets smaller and smaller. China is a bust too!
Save $1B annually, it what did the money dump cost?
Curious how much GM is into EVs (including Brightdrop) and the battery plants and the whole investment versus revenue. Their EV strategy was pretty terrible, the execution a fumble, and Ultium a dud. GM hasn’t changed, they still spend money like it’s nothing and make it back on their safety net: ICE trucks and SUVs.
Imagine if they were a Mazda or Honda and had to got it without their cash cows and instead have a methodical strategy and compelling product range.
Like GM used to be….
…. or you could man/woman up and drive your own vehicle .
Typical mistake by GM — the company doesn’t have enough money to design and market a decent mid-priced sedan, but has enough to waste $10 billion+ on an automated taxicab!
Another GM move that they have repeatedly done: dump a ton of money into something, then develop it half way across the river, then drop it. Sounds similar to the federal government wasting money at the Defense Department.