To better understand where we are today, let\u2019s take a quick look back at how we got here:<\/p>\n
Starry-eyed self-driving startup Cruise was bought out by General Motors in 2016 for the hefty sum of $1 billion.GM\u2019s approach to onboarding Cruise and its then-40-employees into its legal automaker ecosystem wasn\u2019t as strong-armed as most other silicon valley tech acquisitions. There was no massive rebranding under GM, nor was there a huge restructure\u2014the same person who co-founded Cruise in their garage remained at the masthead and made waves as the second youngest senior director at GM.<\/p>\n
GM\u2019s plan was to use Cruise\u2019s already heavy lead into vehicle autonomy as a jump-start into the future. The automaker would rely on the company\u2019s tech to pad its existing suite of safety features, plus tap into the potential goldmine that is the future of driverless robotaxis.<\/p>\n
But Cruise rapidly became a money pit for GM. Even though the service provided 250,000 driverless rides for customers across the U.S., it cost GM a staggering $8 billion to keep the doors open since 2017. And on top of this, bad headlines circulated the press as driverless Cruise-branded Chevrolet Bolts began causing massive bouts of traffic congestion in the streets of San Francisco.<\/p>\n
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Cruise may have grown too big, too quickly\u2014or, at least that\u2019s what a whistleblower warned regulators of in 2022.<\/p>\n
Regulators didn\u2019t take action following an anonymous report of the company\u2019s so-called \u201cchaotic environment.\u201d Eventually, locals became fed-up with the company\u2019s vehicles blocking streets and began to sabotage the robotaxis with trafic cones to prevent them from moving. And when that didn\u2019t work, the protestors picked up hammers to smash the cars instead.<\/p>\n
Despite this, things were looking up for Cruise earlier this year. The company was granted the ability to begin charging for rides around the clock for its rides even though traffic jams were fresh on the minds of regulators and the public. That didn\u2019t last long, though, as Cruise\u2019s vehicles were soon thereafter involved in a number of collisions, including one with a firetruck that led to a reduction in the company\u2019s on-street fleet and another accident involving a Cruise vehicle that ran over a pedestrian launched in front of it AV by a hit-and-run driver.<\/p>\n
The California DMV then suspended Cruise\u2019s driverless permit entirely, citing a safety risk.<\/p>\n
By this time, Cruise\u2019s change in leadership was almost assured. GM then confirmed that it would stop building the Cruise Origin driverless shuttle and Cruise confirmed that it would be hiring a third party to evaluate its response to recent events.<\/p>\n
Cruise hasn\u2019t explicitly said that it would slow down now, but with its co-founder departing and all eyes on how regulation around driverless services could increase, it\u2019s hard to believe that Cruise will continue operating under the minimum viable product mantra of “move fast and break things.” It could also be viewed as another speedbump in the road for fully autonomous vehicles. Last October, Ford-backed Argo AI shut down despite receiving a similar sizable investment of $1 billion. At the time, Ford CEO Jim Farley said that AVs were \u201ca long way off,\u201d perhaps signaling that robotaxis aren\u2019t the key to AV alchemy like automakers once believed.<\/p>\n
All of this leaves Alphabet\u2019s Waymo perfectly positioned to corner the AV market, at least in the U.S. Waymo remains one of the only providers providing paid autonomous ridehailing services in the country, and while it isn\u2019t free from complaints, Waymo does seem to be the last man standing in this arena (at least for now).<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, automakers will likely continue to chase Level 3 and Level 4 autonomy in consumer-facing vehicles over the next decade or longer. It\u2019s unlikely, per Farley himself, that automakers will continue to invest heavily in Level 5 AV technology unless it can purchase the complete package from some key player like Waymo or Cruise. Should Waymo continue to build its lead over Cruise, the Google-backed self-driving company may end up coming out on top.<\/p>\n