Automotive giant General Motors announced Tuesday that it would be pulling funding from its robotaxi firm Cruise, though it gestured at future plans to continue developing self-driving cars.
GM bought Cruise in 2016 for over a billion dollars and has reportedly poured billions more into the business since that time. In a press release, GM said that it “will no longer fund Cruise’s robotaxi development work given the considerable time and resources that would be needed to scale the business, along with an increasingly competitive robotaxi market.”
However, the press release states that GM plans to continue developing autonomous vehicle technology. “As the largest U.S. automotive manufacturer, we’re fully committed to autonomous driving and excited to bring GM customers its benefits – things like enhanced safety, improved traffic flow, increased accessibility, and reduced driver stress,” a statement from Dave Richardson, senior vice president of software and services engineering at GM, reads.
“GM is committed to delivering the best driving experiences to our customers in a disciplined and capital efficient manner,” said Mary Barra, chair and CEO of GM. “Cruise has been an early innovator in autonomy, and the deeper integration of our teams, paired with GM’s strong brands, scale, and manufacturing strength, will help advance our vision for the future of transportation.”
Gizmodo reached out to General Motors for more information and will update this post if they respond.
This makes GM one of the first companies to pull out of what many people believe is a blossoming industry. GM’s competitors, Google (which owns Waymo) has continued to grow its presence in cities, and Uber and Amazon have also sought to invest in the space. Amazon owns Zoox, which is offering more bus-like experiences, while Uber recently made it known that it plans to launch a robotaxi service in Abu Dhabi.
Cruise notably struggled next to its competitors. Last year, after the company was given permission to deploy its vehicles on San Francisco roads for around-the-clock commercial use, the company almost immediately suffered a number of setbacks. An incident in October of 2023 in which a Cruise robotaxi struck and dragged a woman led the company’s permits to be suspended. Cruise then paused operations nationwide. Cruise’s CEO and co-founder, Kyle Vogt, stepped down from the company last November.
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