GM Axes Half of Cruise as It Ditches Robotaxi Business

As companies like Waymo and Tesla plan to step on the gas and expand robotaxi offerings across the country, GM is shifting gears to reverse. An email obtained by TechCrunch revealed that the largest automaker in the United States is cutting nearly half of the workforce currently at Cruise, the autonomous vehicle company that GM had invested in to the tune of $10 billion.

The layoffs, which were announced by Craig Glidden, Cruise’s president and chief administrative officer, will affect nearly 1,000 employees, according to Reuters. That includes Cruise’s CEO, Marc Whitten, who will leave the company this week. Executives heading out the door with him are chief safety officer Steve Kenner, and global head of public policy Rob Grant, and chief technologist Mo Elshenawy.

The layoffs come as General Motors announced that it completed a full acquisition of Cruise, bringing the one-time startup completely under its roof. With GM’s ownership comes a change in focus. The robotaxi business is largely being abandoned in favor of autonomous technology for personal vehicles—specifically, GM’s Super Cruise system, which it has installed in many of its newer models.

GM’s shift to Super Cruise is two-fold: First and foremost, the company thinks the features can make it money. Following its most recent earnings call, the automaker forecast that autonomous options in consumer cars could generate as much as $2 billion in total annual revenue within five years, as the company charges a monthly or annual fee to have access to the features.

Secondly, the robotaxi has been a real money pit for GM. Not only has the company been investing large sums into the service that has yet to really take off, but it’s also caused some serious injuries to people who have unconsentingly been exposed to what amounts to a very public beta testing of these self-driving vehicles. In 2023, a Cruise robotaxi struck a pedestrian and dragged them 20 feet, resulting in serious injuries—an incident the company tried to lie about to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration during its investigation.

Cruise robotaxis also made headlines back in 2022 when about 20 of the vehicles managed to get into a standoff that blocked San Fransisco traffic for nearly two hours. Another got tangled in the city’s light rail line and caused delays. A New York Times report found that Cruise vehicles required human intervention at least once for every 2.5 to five miles driven, which made them pretty far from self-driving status.

If nothing else, GM’s decision to fold up the robotaxi business should allow San Franciscans to breathe a sigh of relief. That’s one fewer autonomous terror to worry about on their city streets.