General Motors (GM) has announced that it has completed the total acquisition of Cruise Automation, a U.S. company specializing in autonomous vehicles, to develop autonomous driving technology for personal vehicles, rather than robotaxis.
The Detroit automaker, which has held a stake in the company since 2016, revealed that it plans to integrate Cruise’s technology into its autonomous driving system, Super Cruise, which allows drivers to operate the vehicle without using their hands on 1,200,000 kilometers of roads in North America and is available in over 20 GM vehicle models.
It is worth noting that in December, GM announced it was suspending funding for Cruise’s robotaxi business, following a year marked by incidents.
A spokesperson for Cruise told “Reuters” that GM’s complete acquisition of the company will lead to a 50% reduction in the Cruise workforce, although the number of affected employees was not disclosed.
Dave Richardson, GM’s vice president of software engineering and services, stated that the change now realized will allow “to accelerate our work in both assisted driving and fully autonomous driving.”
