Since General Motors acquired the San Francisco self-driving-tech developer Cruise in 2016, the Detroit automaker has poured more than $8 billion into creating a robotaxi service. Now GM is turning off the spigot.
On a call with investors today, General Motors CEO Mary Barra said the company would no longer invest in Cruise and its robotaxi services. Instead, GM says it will combine Cruise’s efforts on autonomy with its own teams focused on driver-assistance features. Eventually, the combined team will build “personal” autonomous vehicles, the chief executive said.
“Given the considerable time and expense required to scale a robotaxi business in an increasingly competitive market, combining forces would be more efficient and therefore consistent with our capital allocation priorities,” Barra said on the call.
In a statement emailed to WIRED, Cruise CEO Marc Whitten said the…
