Cruise executives are taking a measured business approach that preserves cash and improves safety culture in an effort to get GM’s troubled autonomous vehicle subsidiary back on track.
The first steps in that rebuilding plan, which includes ceasing production of the Origin robotaxi, were outlined in an internal email sent to employees by Mo Elshenawy, who was executive vice president of engineering at Cruise and rose to the role of president after co-founder. and CEO Kyle Vogt resigned.
For now, that strategy includes more “realistic” plans, according to Elshenawy. That means we’ll be focusing on the current Chevy Bolt AV robotaxi platform instead of the custom-built Origin bus that GM started producing earlier this year. GM recently temporarily halted production of the Origin. This latest email notes that while development of the Origin program will continue, the vehicle will not be produced until 2024. The company is also reviewing its layoff plans and will update in several weeks.
While Elshenawy did not provide a timeline for when Cruise will relaunch, he said the company will relaunch in just one city at first. This is a departure from the aggressive multi-city launch strategy that Cruise and GM had focused on in 2023.
“As we work to restore trust with regulators and communities, we have made the decision to focus on Bolt-based AV Cruises in the short term with a longer-term strategy around Origin,” the company wrote in an emailed statement. in response. in the internal email. “Once we take steps to improve our safety culture and rebuild trust, our strategy is to re-launch in a city and prove our performance there before expanding.”
The internal email also provided some clarification on its employee stock sale program, which was recently suspended for the fourth quarter. Vogt reversed that highly unpopular decision over the weekend, but workers were still waiting for more information. The email sent Wednesday said employees who own restricted stock units that settled between the start of the year and October will be eligible for a new offer to help with tax qualifications.
The internal email comes three days after Vogt abruptly resigned and about a month after the California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended Cruise’s licenses to operate self-driving vehicles on public roads following an Oct. 2 incident that saw a pedestrian — who initially had hit a human-driven car and landed in the path of a Cruise robotaxi — it fell over and was dragged 20 feet by the AV. A video, seen by TechCrunch a day after the incident, showed the robotaxi braking aggressively and coming to a stop on top of the woman. The DMV suspension order said Cruz withheld about seven seconds of video, which showed the robotaxi then trying to pull over and then drag the woman 20 feet.
Cruise, which had already faced growing opposition from city officials in San Francisco, soon found itself stymied by investigations and pressure to cease operations. Without commercial licenses to operate in San Francisco and an internal decision to stop driverless fleets in other states, the company laid off contract workers, further deepening the malaise.
