Just last week, GM made the surprise announcement that it would no longer pursue development of fully autonomous robotaxis, instead refocusing Cruise, its autonomous driving technology division, on the development of autonomous driving technology for personal vehicles. The move was met with praise by industry analysts, and is expected to save GM roughly $1 billion annually. Now, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters labor union, better known simply as the Teamsters, has issued a statement on the issue, arguing that regulatory agencies should hold autonomous vehicle companies accountable.
“With its decision to cut funding for Cruise AV development, GM is finally acknowledging what the general public already knows: robotaxis are not safe,” said Teamsters Western Region International Vice President and president of Teamsters Joint Council 7, Peter Finn. “This has been blindingly obvious ever since Cruise robotaxis ran over pedestrians, blocked first responders from doing their jobs, nearly collided with a seven-year-old boy, and caused traffic pileups on multiple occasions.”
GM has announced that it will restructure Cruise and fold the tech division into its broader technology efforts, with plans to take a 97 percent ownership stake in the company. Technology development will be refocused on personal vehicles, including the GM Super Cruise system, which serves as the automaker’s semi-autonomous driver assist system in more than 20 models across all four U.S. brands.
The Teamsters statement went on to call out “companies like Waymo and Zoox” for putting “pedestrians in harm’s way” as the result of their autonomous tech development efforts, as well as “threatening the livelihoods of tens of millions of Americans who turn a key for a living.”
“The news about GM and Cruise should be a reminder to agencies like the California Public Utilities Commission, the California Department of Motor Vehicles, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration about the destruction these vehicles can cause,” Finn states.
Cruise faced intense scrutiny in 2023 following an incident in which a pedestrian was injured after they were hit by a human-driven vehicle and thrown in front of an autonomous Cruise test vehicle. The accident resulted in a major restructuring effort at Cruise, including the departure of company CEO and co-founder Kyle Vogt.
Comments
the obvious since 1960
The Teamsters are right .
Robomommies for snowflakes who find driving makes them nervous .
Will there be any accountability for the GM employees who approved wasting billions on autonomous robotaxis? Of course not!
And the beat goes on . . .
There will be accountability, but those responsible will not pay the price- it’ll be a few thousand employees at the other end of the organization that had nothing to do with the boondoggle.
This is really frustrating to read, as it is very biased and factually incorrect. Citing a few instances of autonomous vehicle accidents is irrelevant if you aren’t comparing those numbers to those of human drivers. Your Teamster source specifically mentions Waymo “putting pedestrians in harm’s way”, so please consider:
* Human drivers have an injury rate of 2.8 incidents per million miles driven, while Waymo has an injury rate of 0.41 incidents per million miles driven. So you are over six times less likely to be injured in or by a Waymo than a human driver.
* Human drivers have a fatality rate of 1.13 deaths per million miles, whereas Waymo has, so far, driven 7.14 million autonomous miles without a single fatality. So while Waymo has had no deaths, human drivers were responsible for eight deaths.
You could reasonably argue that Waymo is responsible for *saving* eight lives — both passengers and pedestrians. And the tech is getting better and safer all the time — it will never be “worse” than it is now.
So GM Authority is using an obviously-biased and factually incorrect source for it’s “news”, without pointing out the incongruity between those statements and reality? That’s a disservice to your readers, and you can do better.
Incidentally, I have no affiliation with any of this, and I’m very happy that GM is going to focus more resources on autonomous tech for their consumer vehicles (of which I am a customer.)
Try comparing those stats with the mileage of autonomous cars versus human driven cars. Just because people don’t know how to drive doesn’t mean as crap should be shoved down the throat of all of us who do
And how many billions of dollars were wasted on this nightmare? Who’s getting fired?