GM kills off its Cruise robotaxis to focus on ADAS and self-driving for its cars

A year after the California DMV suspended Cruise’s robotaxi services in San Francisco following a series of incidents with pedestrians, General Motors is killing off its robotaxi daughter. It dispatches its engineering teams to the motherhouse to focus on more common driving aid systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving for passenger cars.

“GM will no longer fund Cruise’s robotaxi development work given the considerable time and resources that would be needed to scale the business, along with an increasingly competitive robotaxi market,” the company states in a press release. Tesla’s announcement that it would join the competition with its own robotaxis shortly might have triggered that decision.

Integrating into GM ecosystem

GM owns about 90% of Cruise and has agreements with other shareholders to increase its ownership to more than 97%. The company will pursue the acquisition of the remaining shares, which would enable it to integrate Cruise’s tech into its internal ecosystem. The move would save GM, which already invested $10 billion in Cruise, one billion dollars annually.

“GM is committed to delivering the best driving experiences to our customers in a disciplined and capital-efficient manner,” said Mary Barra, chair and CEO of GM. “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.”

“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 Dave Richardson, senior vice president of software and services engineering.

Building on Super Cruise

The company says it “will build on the progress of Super Cruise, the company’s hands-off, eyes-on driving feature, now offered on more than 20 GM vehicle models and currently logging over 10 million miles per month.”

It means GM is no longer attempting to reach Level 5 autonomous driving, where a car can drive independently of a driver in every thinkable circumstance, a level most think is not achievable in the near future with current technology.

Today, most cars offer only Level 2 assistance, where the driver keeps his hands on the steering wheel and eyes on the road. Cruise’s robotaxis were up to Level 4, where the vehicle operated without a driver in well-defined ‘geo-fenced’ areas.

Pedestrian dragged for meters

Cruise lost its permit to deploy its self-driving cars in California in early October 2023. A pedestrian was hit in San Francisco by a vehicle with a human driver, who fled the scene but pushed the victim into the pathway of an upcoming Cruise taxi. The unmanned vehicle braked but couldn’t avoid hitting the pedestrian, which got severely injured.

Based on video footage, the DMV investigation concluded that the Cruise car didn’t stop entirely after hitting the pedestrian but tried to pull over, awaiting emergency vehicles. The person stuck underneath was dragged several meters further down the road at a little more than 10 km/hour. The pedestrian survived, but the first aid rescuing crew experienced difficulties freeing the stuck person.

In December 2023, Cruise had to fire one out of four employees. That’s approximately 900 people and 24% of all full-time equivalents (FTE), mostly in the non-technical departments.

In April of this year, Cruise announced that it would restart driving on public roads, but this first batch of vehicles would be equipped with a driver on board. These are constantly steering and commanding the car, as the autonomous driving functions remain locked.

Uber partnership a stillborn

Last August, in an attempt to restore faith in its autonomous driving robotaxis, Cruise joined forces with Uber. The ride-hailing platform said it would integrate Cruise’s services into its platform next year, marking a pat on the back for the autonomous vehicle sector. The partnership, announced on August 22, looks to be a stillborn.

Uber already deploys robotaxis from competitor Waymo. It’s a unique offering. With 700 vehicles operational, no other U.S. firm offers ride-hailing with autonomous cars. Uber sees growth opportunities in this niche and announced that autonomous ride-hailing grew sixfold in July compared to the previous year.