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The unit has quickly gone from one of GM's greatest business opportunities to a growing liability. Cruise, of which GM owns more than 80%, has confronted a wave of problems and investigations sparked by an Oct. 2 accident in which a pedestrian in San Francisco was dragged 20 feet by a Cruise self-driving vehicle after the person was struck by another vehicle. Vogt wanted Cruise to dominate the market much in the same way that Uber dominated Lyft.
GM's Cruise loses senior VP of AV platforms - Detroit News
GM's Cruise loses senior VP of AV platforms.
Posted: Fri, 16 Feb 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
Ukraine will need to find €4bn post-war bill to fix destroyed telecoms
Toyota’s vision for a futuristic city teeming with self-driving cars has been significantly delayed. In 2022, AV investments went down nearly 60 percent year over year as startups struggled through layoffs or outright closures. Last month Cruise achieved a significant milestone toward its vision of a safer, more sustainable and accessible transportation future as it became the first company to offer fully driverless rides to the public in a major U.S. city. The redeployed vehicles will not operate as they previously did — as robotaxis — but will "create maps and gather road information in select cities, starting in Phoenix," the company said. The relaunch comes after the company ceased operations weeks after an Oct. 2 accident in which a pedestrian in San Francisco was dragged 20 feet by a Cruise robotaxi after being struck by a separate vehicle.
How will driverless cars ‘talk’ to pedestrians? Waymo has a few ideas
"AV technology, while they've made a lot of progress with it, is unlikely to be profitable anytime in the foreseeable future, certainly not this decade," said Sam Abuelsamid, principal research analyst at Guidehouse Insights. "If they need to make cuts, robotaxis seem like the obvious place to do that." "You'll likely see us expand the number of markets in a large number next year," he said. Cruise believes it can accelerate application of its technology to other cities using a "repeatable playbook" developed in San Francisco, Austin and Phoenix. That should start to deliver revenue numbers with more zeros in them, he said. Cruise has announced plans to start offering rides in Austin and Phoenix, adding those cities to its current base in San Francisco.
Smart navigation app uses ‘3D sound’ to guide blind people
The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) last month suspended Cruise's permits for autonomous vehicle deployment and driverless testing. Cruise subsequently announced a "pause" of all of its driverless operations in the US, which includes San Francisco, Austin, Phoenix, Houston, Dallas, and Miami. General Motors' Cruise self-driving vehicle unit will redeploy cars on U.S. roadways Tuesday for the first time since October, beginning with a small fleet of human-driven vehicles in Phoenix, the company said. While Cruise operations are grounded, vehicles from competitor Waymo, a unit of Alphabet, remain a common sight on San Francisco streets; the company has plans to expand to Los Angeles and other markets. The CEO of self-driving car firm Cruise resigned yesterday following an accident in which a Cruise robotaxi dragged a pedestrian 20 feet. California officials accused Cruise of withholding key information and video after the accident, and the company's self-driving operations are on hold while federal authorities investigate.
General Motors' (GM) Cruise to Restart Operation in Arizona - Yahoo Finance
General Motors' (GM) Cruise to Restart Operation in Arizona.
Posted: Thu, 11 Apr 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Cruise has said it plans a return to testing on public streets, but not has not revealed where or when. Barra, who leads Cruise's board of directors, declined to say at the Dec. 4 press association meeting how much money the automaker is willing to spend on Cruise going forward until it completes its assessments and has a plan to move ahead. Some Wall Street analysts are holding out hope that GM and Barra can turn Cruise around and eventually refocus on growing the business, as the Detroit automaker takes a more hands-on approach with the company. The planned launch of the Origin, designed as a purpose-built automated vehicle, "is a huge unlock" for Cruise because of its lower cost, West said.
GM is spending nearly $2bn a year on Cruise and insists the business represents a “giant growth opportunity”. In June, the GM CEO Mary Barra reiterated a forecast that Cruise could generate $50bn a year in annual revenue by 2030. Quinn Emanuel interviewed 88 people and reviewed 200,000 documents, according to the blog post.
GM CEO Mary Barra said Dec. 4 during an Automotive Press Association meeting in Detroit that the automaker is "very focused on righting the ship" at Cruise. Up to now, Cruise has operated its limited service in San Francisco with a small fleet of Chevrolet Bolt EVs. "At GM, we have encountered bigger hurdles than what confronts Cruise today and we've come out a stronger company because of it," said Glidden, who was an attorney for Cruise's parent. "I have absolutely no doubt that Cruise will come out a stronger company as well." The company said in January that investigations or inquiries into the incident included those by the California DMV, the California Public Utilities Commission, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the U.S.
GM’s Cruise reveals dual US probes into grisly collision and company’s response
Elshenawy was installed as Cruise president last month after its CEO stepped down following regulatory scrutiny after an October accident in which a San Francisco woman was dragged. It’s unclear, but GM has already tightened the reins by signaling that layoffs would be coming. Cruise has already laid off many of the contract workers who do maintenance and fleet operations for the company. But now it seems like Cruise employees are at risk of losing their jobs as well.
Every Cruise Origin will help reduce the world’s reliance on oil, as well as the emissions that disproportionately burden historically underserved communities. The Origin will help expand mobility options for seniors, people who are blind or have low vision, and other communities that have traditionally faced barriers in access to reliable transportation. GM is manufacturing the Origin in Michigan at Factory ZERO, supporting and creating American jobs, promoting economic growth, and advancing the long-term success of the U.S. manufacturing sector and America’s automotive industry.
A big part of Cruise’s strategy moving forward, as outlined in Tuesday’s blog post, involves reforming and establishing updated incident response and crisis management protocols to ensure more efficient and transparent responses in the future. The company says it will also work on improved engagement with first responders to facilitate trainings in each precinct it plans to operate in. The October incident wasn’t the first time Cruise’s technology has caused problems. Even as Cruise expanded to new cities in the second half of 2023, its robotaxis were routinely malfunctioning in cities like San Francisco and Austin, disrupting the flow of traffic, public transit and first responders. The Cruise vehicle then moved "rightward before braking aggressively, but still made contact with the pedestrian," the company said. "The AV detected a collision, bringing the vehicle to a stop; then attempted to pull over to avoid causing further road safety issues, pulling the individual forward approximately 20 feet."
Instead it let the video “speak for itself”, according to the blog post. In three meetings, internet troubles prevented regulators from fully viewing the video and the report indicates company officials did not seek to fix the issue. Cruise reported the government investigations in a blog post in which the company also vowed to reform its culture stemming from a “failure of leadership” around the incident. The blog post did not disclose the status of the victim, who was dragged 20ft by the vehicle, nor the scope of the justice department and SEC probes. GM’s Cruise self-driving car unit on Thursday revealed US Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission probes stemming from an October collision in which one of its autonomous vehicles dragged a pedestrian who had been struck by another vehicle.
Cruise began expanding its paid service area in the Phoenix area in August 2023. Alphabet’s Waymo — Cruise’s main competitor that’s still active in San Francisco — has operated a paid, driverless robotaxi service in the area since 2020 and last year doubled its service area in downtown Phoenix and launched driverless rides to the airport. The company initially provided regulators with video of the incident but no verbal context such as mentioning that the woman was dragged 23ft (7 metres).
It also did not announce a timetable for expanding human-driven vehicles to other cities. General Motors’ Cruise is redeploying robotaxis in Phoenix after nearly five months of paused operations, the company said in a blog post. In the blog post summarizing a more than 100-page report, Cruise characterized its response to the incident as mistakes made by a relatively new company inexperienced in dealing with regulators, the media and the public. The DMV action came three weeks after a Cruise vehicle hit and dragged a pedestrian in San Francisco. A woman entered a crosswalk at nighttime and was hit by two cars, the second of which was the Cruise vehicle. First, a Nissan Sentra "tragically struck and propelled the pedestrian into the path of the AV," Cruise said in a description of the incident.
According to the Times, the company “put a priority on the speed of the program over safety.” In many ways, it echoes Uber’s infamous approach to self-driving cars, which cut corners on safety in order to get more cars on the road. Eventually, an Uber self-driving car killed a woman crossing the street in Arizona, which resulted in the company shuttering the whole division. The company subsequently paused driverless operations nationwide, appointed a new chief safety officer, recalled all 950 of its vehicles, and retained an outside group to perform an independent safety audit. This program will keep Cruise extremely competitive in the talent market against both public and private companies as the company enters the early commercialization phase and continues to attract and retain some of the world’s best talent. Cruise said its "goal is to resume driverless operations," however it did not provide a timeline for doing so.
General Motors' Cruise autonomous vehicle unit has hit an "all time low," said its new leader, while promising to restore trust with regulators and the public after the company pulled all of its vehicles from U.S. roads. Barra ousted Dan Ammann as Cruise CEO in December 2021, replacing him with Vogt, who at the time was chief technology officer. Ammann, who had once competed with Barra for the top spot at GM, wanted to keep the focus on robotaxis, while Barra and the GM board wanted to go big, including putting Cruise’s technology in luxury Cadillac vehicles.
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