On Tuesday, Cruise, General Motors' embattled autonomous vehicle arm, announced it will be suspending all public road operations, both supervised and manual. This comes in the wake of the prior suspension of driverless operations, after a Board meeting at Cruise's San Francisco headquarters on Monday, which included a restructuring, additional GM oversight, and an enhanced safety investigation. The company indicated in a blog post that this pause would serve as an additional measure to regain public trust, while they conduct a thorough safety review.Cruise, the driverless car unit of General Motors, stated on Tuesday that it will be pausing all public road operations - both with and without supervision. This step is to rebuild trust while the company is undergoing a safety review. To stay focused on advancing AV technology, they will remain operating on closed courses and maintaining an active simulation program.The decision comes after the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) suspended Cruise's deployment and testing permits in October; the suspension occurred due to an "unreasonable risk to public safety". Additionally, Federal auto safety regulators have begun investigating Cruise due to multiple reports of pedestrian injuries.Following a board meeting at Cruise's San Francisco headquarters, the company stated they will hire an independent safety expert in the coming weeks to scrutinize their safety operations and culture; this comes in addition to their recent hiring of a chief safety officer. Furthermore, Exponent - an engineering consulting firm - will now be expanding its probe into a complete review of Cruise's technology and safety systems.Cruise then announced a round of contractor layoffs last Thursday, claiming it was to reduce the contingent workforce that was in charge of driverless ridehail operations. However, some contractors claim their job description also included reprogramming cars, updating vehicles after software updates, offloading data and more.Cruise's decision to pause driverless activities has led to a loss of roughly $1.9 billion for General Motors this year.
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