General Motors Co. in Detroit has announced the realignment of its autonomous driving strategy by developing advanced driver assistance systems on a path to fully autonomous personal vehicles.
The new offering will build on Super Cruise, the company’s hands-off, eyes-on driving feature. It’s available on more than 20 GM vehicle models.
Going forward, GM intends to combine the majority-owned Cruise LLC and GM technical teams into a single effort to advance autonomous and assisted driving.
As a result, the automaker will no longer fund Cruise’s robotaxi development work — citing the considerable time and resources needed to scale the business, along with an increasingly competitive robotaxi market.
Reporting on the move, a BofA Global Research Report stated: “SuperCruise is currently a sophisticated Level 2 system, and the combined efforts of the Cruise and the SuperCruise teams should help accelerate the development towards Level 3, and later Level 4.”
The report added GM expects to reduce spending by more than $1 billion with the proposed plan.
“GM is committed to delivering the best driving experiences to our customers in a disciplined and capital efficient manner,” says Mary Barra, chair and CEO of GM. “Cruise has been an early innovator in autonomy, and the deeper integration of our teams, paired with GM’s strong brands, scale, and manufacturing strength, will help advance our vision for the future of transportation.”
GM, which owns about 90 percent of Cruise, has agreements with other shareholders that will raise its ownership to more than 97 percent. The company will pursue the acquisition of the remaining shares. Contingent upon the repurchase of these shares and Cruise board approval, GM will work with the Cruise leadership team to restructure and refocus Cruise’s operations.
“As the largest U.S. automotive manufacturer, we’re fully committed to autonomous driving and excited to bring GM customers its benefits — things like enhanced safety, improved traffic flow, increased accessibility, and reduced driver stress,” says Dave Richardson, senior vice president of software and services engineering of GM.
The automaker expects the restructuring to lower spending by more than $1 billion annually after the proposed plan is completed, which is expected in the first half of 2025.
For more information, visit gm.com.
