CRUISE, the self-driving vehicle unit majority owned by General Motors (GM), is targeting a return to running fully autonomous rides later this year and possibly charging fares by early 2025, said sources familiar with the matter.
The San Francisco-based company has been trying to regain traction after grounding its fleet in October following the mishandling by prior management of a collision with a pedestrian. One of its vehicles struck and dragged a pedestrian, who was hospitalised for months. California regulators pulled Cruise’s driverless license alleging that the company was not forthcoming with details about the incident.
Since then, Cruise has been working to rebuild the business by overhauling top management with a new chief executive officer and by mending relationships with regulators. With a new team in place, it’s targeting a return to fully autonomous driving by the end of the year perhaps a resumption of charging fares early next year, the sources said.
A spokesperson for Cruise declined to comment.
On GM’s earnings conference call on Tuesday (Jul 23), GM CEO Mary Barra said Cruise’s technology has improved, is meeting tougher safety metrics and progressing towards a return to safety drivers.
“The technology is much more advanced to be better than a role model driver,” Barra said. “I’m very confident as we now have the vehicles operating and we are on the path very quickly to get back to driverless with much safer technology.”
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The company has been running its cars in Phoenix since April and added Dallas and Houston in recent months. Test drivers remain behind the wheel while Cruise updates mapping and driving data in those cities and tests out its technology.
Last month, Cruise hired former Amazon.com and Microsoft executive Marc Whitten as CEO. Founder and former CEO Kyle Vogt stepped down from the top job in November in the wake of the pedestrian incident. Late last year, GM cut nine other top Cruise executives and a quarter of the workforce to lower costs and instil a safety-minded culture.
GM is looking for partners and other investors to help fund Cruise and continue development. Getting its cars back on the road without a safety driver and charging fares would be proof points for potential investors, one of the sources said.
Cruise, which has no revenue, lost US$1.2 billion in the second quarter and US$1.8 billion in the first half of the year. That loss includes US$583 million in restructuring charges related to the shelving of its Origin purpose-build autonomous shuttle. The company will instead use the Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicle.
The Detroit automaker announced it will fund Cruise with US$850 million, which would be enough to keep the unit flush into the first quarter of 2025. GM is looking to restart the robotaxi business and focus on developing personally owned driverless vehicles. BLOOMBERG