Cruise workers ‘turn a blind eye’ to GM’s plan to end robotaxi program

The news came via a Slack message.

Cruise CEO Marc Whitten, who took the top job in June, posted a message on the company’s announcement channel Tuesday afternoon. press release It’s under the headline “GM Focusing Autonomous Driving Development on Personal Cars.”

GM, which acquired the self-driving car startup in 2016, will no longer fund the companycompleted the mission that hundreds of cruise engineers have been working on for years.

A few minutes later, during an all-hands meeting, the Cruise staff learned a few more details. The self-driving car company will be merged into parent company GM and will be integrated into the automaker’s efforts to develop driver assistance features and eventually fully autonomous personal vehicles. It was still unclear if their jobs were safe or if they would be made redundant.

That meeting was brief and unsatisfying, one source said, adding that the senior leadership team was also surprised by the turn of events. Whitten, president and chief technology officer Mo Elshenawy and chief administrative officer Craig Glidden led everyone.

Several Cruise employees who spoke to TechCrunch on condition of anonymity said they were “surprised” and “flabbergasted” by the decision. A source told TechCrunch that employees learned about GM’s plans around the same time as the media.

They told employees that they should be “proud” and that “the technology will continue,” noting that there would be restructuring and that it would take several months for Cruise to transition to the GM team.

Executives did not provide any details about the potential layoffs, the sources said. However, several employees told TechCrunch that they expect job cuts. While details are thin, the most sensitive are likely to be the non-engineering roles or those related to robotaxi operations, including government jobs, communications teams, ground operations and remote assistance teams in cities where Cruise is slowly restarting testing. Phoenix, Houston and Dallas.

Our source told TechCrunch that they were following a roadmap to launch a driverless service in Houston in 2025, and they weren’t expecting it.

Cruise has been under pressure for years to commercialize the robot and generate revenue. And at one point, hopes and ambitions were high. By 2021, GM predicted Cruise would have tens of thousands of custom-built Origin robotaxis on the road. Annual income of 50 billion dollars by the end of the decade.

The company was eventually forced to push back on its ambitious deadline, like many other autonomous car startups.

The cruise finally received the final permit required by California regulators for commercial operations in San Francisco in August 2023. Two months later, the company would come under intense scrutiny after investigation October 2 event It was run over by a pedestrian and then dragged away by one of their robot taxis. This incident and Cruise’s actions in the immediate aftermath caused Cruise to lose his licenses to operate in California, the entire US Navy, his co-founder and CEO Kyle Vogt is stepping downrounds of layoffs, and GM has taken more direct control of the once-promising self-driving startup.

Even as GM tried to reign in costs, all roads pointed to a reboot.

In June, GM Cruise a $850 million lifeline Helping restart trials of their robot taxis in Phoenix, Dallas and Houston. Cruise even signed a partnership with Uber to launch its own robot taxis The Uber platform in 2025.

There were still signs that a turnaround was coming, especially when GM announced in June 2024 that it would launch the Origin, a custom-built robotaxis with no steering wheel or pedals. Discovered in January 2020. Barra told shareholders at the time that the decision to scrap Origin and instead use the next-generation Chevrolet Bolt in its operations would “simplify its path to scale” and remove the regulatory uncertainty it faced with Origin’s robotaxi because of its unique design. GM bought it $583 million payment related to Origin assets and other restructuring charges in the second quarter.

In 2022, GM submitted a request to the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration. temporary release Of the six federal motor vehicle safety standards for a vehicle of origin that allows driving a vehicle without a steering wheel. The The FAST ActThe law, signed by President Obama in December 2015, allows manufacturers like GM to test and evaluate vehicles that do not meet federal motor vehicle safety standards (FMVSS). If Cruise wanted to launch a commercial service with Origin — meaning pay for a ride or delivery — it needed special exemptions from the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration.

While waiting for release, GM continued development and final production of the custom-built Origin robotax. But as Reuters later discovered and reported, GM withdrew his request on October 25.

Updated: Article originally published on December 10 at 6:11 p.m. The article has been updated with new information about the company’s Origin robot and an exemption request with federal safety regulators.