General Motors said it would no longer fund its Cruise robotaxi service as it seeks to focus autonomous vehicle development on personally owned vehicles.
GM said Cruise employees would be combined with its internal teams working on advanced driver assist systems, as well as its project to develop personally owned autonomous vehicles.
“Consistent with GM’s capital allocation priorities, GM will no longer fund Cruise’s robotaxi development work given the considerable time and resources that would be needed to scale the business, along with an increasingly competitive robotaxi market,” the automaker said in a statement published Tuesday.
It’s likely that GM’s move will result in layoffs at Cruise, though none are being announced right now. What is clear is that Cruise’s testing in Arizona and Texas will pause as the company decides its next move. GM will need repurchase its remaining shares of Cruise (the automaker owns 90 percent of the company) and then Cruise’s board will determine next steps, which includes restructuring, layoffs, or simply shutting down.
The shutdown of Cruise’s robotaxi service comes amid a turbulent time for autonomous vehicles. While Alphabet’s Waymo continues to eye new markets, other ventures have faltered. The most notable was Argo AI, which shutdown in 2022 after Ford and Volkswagen pulled funding.