Daughter Cruise is withdrawing from the business

Massive setback for fully autonomous driving: Cruise ended the robotaxis business. The parent company GM had invested billions in the project.

There are two trends in particular that have been shaking up the automotive industry for more than a decade: electromobility and autonomous driving. While electric cars have made great strides forward in recent years, things are completely different when it comes to autonomous driving. Many manufacturers have now installed systems that can take control for a limited time for a short time. But truly fully autonomous vehicles for private individuals are still a long way off – even Tesla had to backtrack on its promises about its own systems. Now the GM subsidiary Cruise is also throwing in the towel: they tried to get started in the robotaxi business with high investments.

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Robotaxis in use: Incidents occur again and again

Robotaxis from Cruise and the Alphabet subsidiary Waymo have been operating in San Francisco for several years. Incidents occurred again and again – sometimes of a rather strange nature, such as nightly honking from parked robotaxis or robo-vehicles that got stuck in fresh concrete. But there were also highly dangerous events, such as the accident between a robotaxis and a fire engine.

Serious robotaxi accident in San Francisco

In the fall of 2023, Cruise's expansion came to an abrupt end after a serious accident: In San Francisco, a woman was hit at an intersection by a car with a human behind the wheel and thrown in front of a driverless Cruise car. The robotaxi could no longer brake and the woman was trapped underneath. However, the software didn't notice this – and caused the car to pull over to the side of the road. The woman was dragged around six meters under the vehicle.

The accident had serious consequences for Cruise, partly because management initially made it seem more harmless. Cruise lost its license to provide transport services in San Francisco, the vehicles were decommissioned and the company's management was replaced. The GM subsidiary only started test drives again a few months ago.

GM is pulling the plug on cruise cars

But now it's finally over: after spending billions, the US car giant General Motors is giving up the dream of self-driving robotaxis. Instead, the group will rely on assistance systems that will eventually enable autonomous driving in private cars. The turnaround is expected to save $1 billion annually, GM announced. The group now pointed out that expanding the robotaxi business would take time and consume considerable resources – and that the market was becoming increasingly competitive. Apple also stopped its program to develop self-driving cars some time ago after years of development and billions in costs.

The Google sister company Waymo is advertising robotaxis passengers in several US cities

Google's sister company Waymo is currently the most successful robotaxi developer and transports passengers in several US cities. The Waymo cars now make more than 150,000 passenger trips per week. Another provider, Zoox, which is part of Amazon, will soon offer driving services in Las Vegas and San Francisco, among other places.