By AFP
Published December 15, 2023
Activists from SafeStreetRebel shown in July placing a cone on a self-driving Cruise robotaxi to disable it in San Francisco - Copyright AFP/File Mandel NGAN
US autonomous driving venture Cruise announced Thursday it will eliminate roughly a quarter of its workforce as it slows commercialization to address safety issues.
The company, a subsidiary of General Motors, notified 24 percent of its workers — or about 900 people — that they would lose their positions following a recent pause after a highly publicized incident in California.
President Mo Elshenawy said Cruise aims to resume operations in one market “and enhance our safety standards and processes before we scale,” according to a message to employees.
“This is very different from our prior plans to expand into more than a dozen new cities in 2024,” said Elshenawy, who has moved up in the company following the November departure of co-founder Kyle Vogt.
GM’s Cruise operation has been on hold since October 27 when it suspended of operations after California halted testing of the robotaxis.
The venture has been under scrutiny after a self-driving car operated by Cruise ran over a woman who had first been knocked in front of it by a hit-and-run driver in San Francisco.
The company has ordered independent reviews of the incident and the safety and technology, GM Chief Executive Mary Barra told Wall Street analysts on November 29.
Barra said the company would be “very deliberate” with the operation. Company officials also disclosed that they planned to spend hundreds of millions of dollars less in 2024 on Cruise compared with 2023.
The push-back of commercialization means Cruise didn’t need as many support employees in some cities or in light of a company restructuring, Elshenawy said in the message.
The employees targeted for cuts were “largely outside of engineering, although some tech positions are impacted also,” he added.
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