General Motors is shifting its focus to personal self-driving cars as it searches for a profitable business model for the technology.
General Motors is shutting down its robotaxi service Cruise in the United States. Instead, the company, which owns brands such as Chevrolet, Buick and Cadillac, wants to focus more on developing self-driving cars that individuals can buy.
The Cruise robotaxi service was one way in which self-driving technology was supposed to gain traction in the US. But for GM, it was an expensive endeavor. The company bought the Cruise startup in 2016 and is said to have invested around $10 billion in it. However, the robotaxi service kept missing deadlines for its plans and reported a $3.48 billion loss in 2023.
The entire department is now being overhauled, and future research into self-driving cars within GM will focus on devices with a more traditional business model: ones you buy rather than rent per ride.
In the United States, several pilot programs for self-driving cars and robotaxi services are currently underway. Tesla wants to roll out its robotaxi service by 2025, and Alphabet’s Waymo has been working on it for some time. Other services like Argo AI from Ford and Volkswagen have been shut down due to “unprofitability.”