Barron's:
GM, which owns about 80% of Cruise, told Barron’s earlier this month it was finishing production of a small number of commercial Cruise vehicles and then planned to pause production temporarily.
Cruise is still important for GM, which projected the robotaxi company could generate $50 billion in annual sales by 2030. That forecast hasn’t been updated in recent months.
General Motors' Cruise driverless-car unit plans to eventually reintroduce its robotaxi service following safety mishaps, but will narrow the focus to one city and shelve plans for the Origin, a GM-built driverless taxi. Cruise’s new co-president, Mo Elshenawy, outlined in an employee email Wednesday the plan to scale back future operations to one market, a change from an earlier strategy to deploy service in more than a dozen cities, according to people familiar with the matter. Cruise previously had launched efforts in several cities including San Francisco, Phoenix, Austin, Houston and Miami. Elshenawy didn’t cite a timeline to resume service or specify the city, the people said.
Can you find any good news in this story?
In a statement, Cruise confirmed plans to narrow its focus, and said the Origin would be part of its longer-term plans.
“Our strategy is to re-launch in one city and prove our performance there, before expanding,” it said.
The new plans come nearly a month after California regulators revoked Cruise’s driverless permits following an incident in which a self-driving Cruise vehicle hit a pedestrian and dragged her nearly 20 feet. Cruise then chose to suspend operations nationwide.
Since then, Cruise’s board has hired a law firm to investigate Cruise’s response to the incident, and its chief executive, Kyle Vogt, resigned.
If Cruise chooses San Francisco as its singular market, it would need to re-apply for the operational permits it lost. In the email Wednesday, [the new guy] Elshenawy said the Origin would factor into the company’s long-range plans, but near-term service would continue to use retrofitted Chevrolet Bolts, which the company has been using for years.
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