Former Cruise CEO slams GM for ditching robotaxi: “bunch of dummies”

General Motors has abandoned its robotaxi venture to focus on developing personal self-driving cars.

General Motors (GM), best known for manufacturing Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, and Cadillac vehicles, has revealed new plans to “realign its autonomous driving strategy” in an effort to focus on fully autonomous personal vehicles.

Given the increasingly competitive robotaxi market, GM will no longer fund the development of its Cruise robotaxi as it would take much time and resources to scale the business next to self-driving giants like Tesla.

The teams that were once working on this project will be reassigned to new teams with the goal of advancing autonomous and assisted driving.

GM has had majority ownership of the self-driving car company Cruise since 2016. Since then, Cruise has encountered various challenges, which may have impacted GM’s decision to abandon the project.

Another catastrophe for Cruise

In 2023, Cruise had to recall almost 950 of its vehicles after one of its cars hit a pedestrian and dragged them for 20 feet (six meters).

According to The Guardian, the person was critically injured as they were found pinned under the tire of one of Cruise’s self-driving cars.

After the accident, the co-founder and former CEO of Cruise, Kyle Vogt, resigned.

In case it was unclear before, it is clear now: GM are a bunch of dummies.

undefined Kyle Vogt (@kvogt) December 10, 2024

Cruise then suspended all its robotaxi operations across the US after the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) revoked its driving permits, claiming that the driverless vehicles were a risk to public safety.

The autonomous driving company faced more than $1.5 million in fines, plus other sanctions after California regulators found it liable for misleading the public and the non-disclosure of a crash involving one of its self-driving taxis and a pedestrian.

In November 2024, Cruise admitted to submitting a false report to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration because it failed to mention the pedestrian incident. The autonomous driving company agreed to pay a fine of $500,000.

This arguably caused a domino effect, as GM’s Cruise then laid off 900 employees, roughly 24% of its workforce, calling it a “necessary step” for the company's long-term future.

After hearing of GM’s plans to realign its autonomous vehicle strategy, Cruise’s former CEO expressed his opinion on General Motors.

“In case it was unclear before, it is clear now: GM are a bunch of dummies,” Vogt said in an X post first discovered by the BBC.