Cruise is Dead.

Today, General Motors (the majority owner of the Cruise roboxati business) announced that they will be cutting all funding and shutting down development. This is despite stating in 2023 that Cruise was a "top priorty".

Cruise has had a troubled past. Last year, one of their autonomous cars was involved in an incident where a pedestrain was injured. Whilst this was an unavoidable situation (no car could have stopped in time), the company then failed to disclose key details to relevant authorities. Since then, the service has been unavailable to the wider public, however up until today they have continued development and committed to improve the safety of their system and operations.

What does this mean for an autonomous future?

More players in a market is always a good thing, and it's sad to see another entrant leave the space. However, this is not the first time a big automaker has given up on self-driving. For example, in 2022, Ford and Volkswagen shifted funding away from Argo AI, winding down development and testing.

It's clear that big automakers are not as serious as they initially make out when it comes to becoming big players in the autonomous space. These companies excel at making cars, but the challenge to develop a safe, reliable autonomous system is an immensely different kind of challenge, and it seems GM just didn't have the patience to persist.

In the future, perhaps we will see more of a shift towards partnerships between AV companies and automakers, such as the recently announced deal between Waymo and Hyundai. This way, both parties can play to their strengths.