The Rimac Group describes Verne, its new autonomous ride-hailing service, as its “next impossible thing.” First, founder Mate Rimac established his eponymous electric hypercar company in Croatia, a country with no history of carmaking. That went well. Porsche, Hyundai, and Softbank all took stakes. The Volkswagen Group gifted him a majority …
Read More »Cruise Was Asked to Ground Robotaxis on Halloween to Keep Kids Safe
A week before Halloween last year, city of Austin employee Rachel Castignoli sent a polite but firm email to a government relations staffer at self-driving vehicle developer Cruise. “We would like you to not operate between 5 pm and 9 pm on Halloween,” she wrote in bold text highlighted in …
Read More »Massive Layoffs Hit Troubled Robotaxi Developer Cruise
Cruise, General Motors’ self-driving development subsidiary, will lay off almost a quarter of its workforce—about 900 employees—the company announced Thursday. The cuts are part of a broader restructuring to focus the robotaxi unit on a narrower path to commercialization. Instead of expanding its commercial robotaxi service to multiple US cities, …
Read More »GM Slashes Spending on Robotaxi Unit Cruise, a Setback for Driverless Cars
General Motors (GM) will slash spending in its self-driving car unit Cruise, after an accident last month seriously injured a pedestrian and prompted regulators to retract its operating permit for driverless cars in San Francisco. The company will “substantially lower” its spending on Cruise next year, according to Mary Barra, …
Read More »Kyle Vogt, CEO of Robotaxi Developer Cruise, Resigns as Questions Linger Over Grisly Crash
Kyle Vogt, the CEO of self-driving car developer Cruise who founded the company before its acquisition by General Motors in 2016, resigned this evening. His announcement comes amid upheaval at the company, which last month had its permit to operate its groundbreaking robotaxi service in San Francisco suspended by state …
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