General Motors: 850 million dollars for robotaxi company Cruise

The US car giant General Motors is supporting its robotaxi company Cruise with a financial injection of 850 million dollars. This will give the company time to finalize strategic considerations regarding the future of Cruise, GM manager Paul Jacobson said at a conference appearance on Tuesday.

Cruise was among the pioneers of autonomous driving and had ambitious expansion plans. But then a driverless car driven by Cruise in San Francisco dragged a woman several meters at the beginning of October. After that, all driving was suspended for months – and Cruise is only just starting to get his cars back on the road. GM has already signaled that the Robotaxi service will initially be resumed in a single city.

The pedestrian involved in the accident in San Francisco had previously been hit by another car with a person at the wheel and thrown in front of the self-driving car. According to the accident report, the robotaxi braked immediately – but the woman still fell under the vehicle.

The cruise cars are programmed so that they can automatically pull over to the side of the road after collisions to avoid obstructing traffic. The software also decided to do this in this case – even though the woman was still under the car. According to an investigation report, she was dragged along for around six meters and the car reached a speed of a good eleven kilometers per hour.

It was devastating for Cruise’s reputation that these details only became known later, while the accident was presented more harmlessly at first. GM replaced the company’s top management. The car manufacturer and other investors have already invested billions in Cruise.

During his appearance at a conference organized by Deutsche Bank, Jacobson also defended General Motors’ decision to expand the production of electric cars more slowly than originally planned. The Group would have the capacity to build around 300,000 vehicles this year. But GM does not want to end up in a situation where it blindly follows a production target – and ends up with thousands of unsold vehicles in the yard because the market is not yet ready.

The industry had already been too optimistic about the growth in sales of electric cars: “As an industry, we have overproduced.” GM therefore expects to build 200,000 to 250,000 electric vehicles this year.

dpa