General Motors announced Tuesday that it will halt development of its Cruise robotaxis, citing the costs of operating its driverless ride-hailing service.
Cruise has a checkered history in San Francisco, where it began using driverless vehicles in 2021 and began serving paying customers the following year. Cruise vehicles occasionally stopped and blocked traffic or performed inappropriate hard braking maneuvers. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a preliminary investigation into Cruise’s autonomous vehicles in December 2022.
But the worst was yet to come. On October 2, 2023, a cruiser struck a pedestrian who was trapped under the vehicle. The robotaxi then pulled to the side of the road, dragging the victim approximately 20 feet at low speed, seriously injuring him. The California Department of Motor Vehicles soon suspended Cruise’s permit to operate in the state. Cruise also shut down its operations in Phoenix, Houston and Austin, Texas.
In January of this year, GM CEO Mary Barra insisted the automaker remained committed to Cruise. In April, Cruise returned to the streets of Phoenix to begin collecting map data, but had to recall its vehicles in August to fix a software issue that could have caused unexpected braking.
GM invested billions in its Cruise subsidiary, but more needed to be done. “Launching and operating a robotaxi business is expected to require a significant amount of incremental time and capital beyond the $10 billion we have already invested,” Barra said on a conference call Tuesday. “The robotaxi business is not General Motors’ core business,” Barra said.
“GM’s decision to close Cruise, after investing more [$10] billion, highlights a harsh reality in the autonomous vehicle industry: Even massive investments do not guarantee success when dealing with the complexities of real-world driving and public safety,” said Dev Nag, CEO of QueryPal, a customer support company based about artificial intelligence, in an email.
GM has also faced growing competition for autonomous ride-hailing services. Waymo now operates in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix and plans to enter Miami in early 2025. Uber and Waymo said they will collaborate on robotaxi service in Atlanta and Austin, Texas, next year. Lyft offers some autonomous rides in Las Vegas in partnership with Motional and said it will add AV in Atlanta in partnership with May Mobility. Elon Musk unveiled a Tesla “Cybercab” prototype in October and said the company will begin offering driverless trials of its Model 3 sedan and Model Y SUV in California and Texas next year.
GM plans to leverage Cruise’s expertise in autonomous technology to further develop its driver-assist software, called Super Cruise, available in some General Motors vehicles.