GM Will "Refocus" Cruise And Autonomous Vehicle Development

General Motors announced changes to its autonomous driving strategy, moving to prioritize the development of advanced driver assistance systems.

A company press release says it will “refocus” its autonomous driving development to instead focus on “personal vehicles,” building off the progress it has already made on Super Cruise, its hands-free semi-autonomous driving software. GM chose to abandon the Cruise robotaxi project due to the "considerable time and resources that would be needed to scale the business, along with an increasingly competitive robotaxi market."

Cruise, the majority-GM-owned autonomous taxi company, will be swallowed up by the company with GM intending to merge Cruise and GM technical teams into “a single effort” moving forward.

Employees of Cruise, which was bought by GM in 2016, told TechCrunch that they were notified of the change via Slack message, learning minutes later in an all-hands meeting that GM would absorb the company. What isn’t clear as of publishing is how many of Cruise's existing employees will keep their jobs—though some told TechCrunch that they expect job cuts. GM told its employees the change would take several months.

GM already owns around 90% of Cruise, and says it will achieve total ownership through agreements with shareholders and purchasing any remaining shares. The company says it will “work with the Cruise leadership team to restructure and refocus Cruise’s operations,” and that by absorbing Cruise it will save more than $1 billion annually once the merger is completed— the Formula 1 team isn't going to fund itself.

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