GM pulls plug on Cruise robo-taxis

The robo-taxi company Cruise – whose autonomous vehicles were banned last year from San Francisco streets – is no more.

General Motors, which owns 90 percent of Cruise, announced Tuesday that it is folding the company’s technical teams into its own division developing personal autonomous vehicles.

The distinctive orange-and-white Cruise vehicles disappeared from San Francisco streets following an accident on October 2, 2023. 

That’s when a woman was struck by a human hit-and-run driver at 5th and Market streets. The woman fell into the path of a Cruise vehicle, which failed to detect her presence. The driverless vehicle dragged her 20 feet, pinning her underneath, before she was freed by emergency personnel.

Three weeks later, California’s Department of Motor Vehicles revoked Cruise’s permit to operate its fleet of self-driving vehicles.

Earlier this year, GM agreed to pay the woman, who sustained “multiple traumatic injuries,” a settlement ranging between $8–12 million.

Cruise subsequently admitted to filing a false report of the accident with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The company paid a one-and-a-half million dollar fine.

GM bought a controlling interest in Cruise in 2016. An Associated Press review of the automotive giant’s filings showed Cruise sustained more than $10 billion in operating losses, while generating less than a half-billion in revenues.

The demise of Cruise thins the competition for Waymo, its leading local rival in autonomous vehicles.