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The agency alleged the self-driving-car company, which reportedly had roughly 400 cars operating in San Francisco, withheld video of a Cruise robotaxi dragging a person down a street. Later that month, Cruise suspended operations across all of its fleets and said it was working to strengthen public trust. Dan Ammann, the CEO of Cruise, the autonomous vehicle company that is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Motors, is stepping down, the automaker announced late Thursday. Kyle Vogt, the co-founder of Cruise and its chief technology officer, will take over as interim CEO. Since then, the autonomous vehicles have drawn complaints for making unexpected, traffic-clogging stops that critics say threaten to inconvenience other travelers and imperil public safety.
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But Ammann also oversaw some setbacks, most noticeably the decision to delay a planned launch of a robotaxi service in San Francisco in 2019. The company has yet to commit to a new date but has implied it will be in 2022. By Andrew J. Hawkins, transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation.
GM announces Cruise CEO Dan Ammann is stepping down
While his departure is apparently unrelated, it does raise questions about the business side of Cruise, aspects of which Ammann and Watson would have been focused on. Cruise had grown from a small startup with 40 employees to more than 1,000 by the time Ammann took over. "As for what's next for me, I plan to spend time with my family and explore some new ideas. Thanks for the great ride!" Vogt wrote.
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GM looking at the best path to unlock value at Cruise, CEO Barra says - Reuters
GM looking at the best path to unlock value at Cruise, CEO Barra says.
Posted: Thu, 15 Feb 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
Vogt sent out an email Saturday saying that certain employees could sell a limited number of shares in a one-time opportunity. Vogt didn’t provide many details but said the company was developing a plan to conduct a new tender offer to provide restricted stock unit liquidity to mitigate potential tax implications. The initial layoffs included contract workers who had jobs cleaning, charging and maintaining the vehicles as well as answering customer support inquiries. Not all contingent workers, who are employed by a third party, were laid off.
Ammann was at the center of GM’s initial investment and acquisition of Cruise. Vogt even mentioned his connection to Ammann while onstage at SF Disrupt in September 2018. When Ammann first joined GM in 2010 as vice president of finance and treasurer, his first task was to manage GM’s initial public offering. At the time, Ammann’s appointment as Cruise CEO seemed to signal that an IPO could be a goal. Vogt expressed optimism about Cruise's future without him, saying the team is "executing on a solid, multi-year roadmap and an exciting product vision."
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Cruise subsequently announced a "pause" of all of its driverless operations in the US, which includes San Francisco, Austin, Phoenix, Houston, Dallas, and Miami. GM CEO Mary Barra would routinely invite him to appear on earnings calls or to speak at investor conferences in a sign that the automaker was fully invested in Cruise. Barra herself went onstage at CES in 2022 and declared that GM would sell fully autonomous vehicles, powered by Cruise’s technology, to regular people by mid-decade.
Cruise’s C.E.O. Quits as the Driverless Carmaker Aims to Rebuild Trust
In orders of suspension the California DMV issued to Cruise, the regulators accused the company of failing to give a transparent account of what happened during the pedestrian collision. Since acquiring Cruise, GM has invested billions in its operations and brought on investors including Honda Motor, Softbank Vision Fund and, more recently, Walmart and Microsoft. In naming a new CEO of self-driving company Cruise Monday, majority-owner General Motors is handing the firm back to one of its original founders.
Vogt's resignation comes roughly two years after he was reappointed as CEO, following an unexpected departure by Dan Ammann, a former GM executive, in December 2021. GM acquired Cruise in 2016 to speed up its self-driving car development program. Ammann, who was then the president of GM, oversaw the acquisition and later assumed the role of CEO of the company. On Monday, co-founder and Chief Product Officer Daniel Kan also resigned, the company said. General Motors’ self-driving-car unit, Cruise, is shaking up its leadership after the company lost permits needed to operate in California and paused its operations. Separately, Cruise’s go-to-market VP Lucas Watson left the company last week, according to several sources with direct knowledge.
GM-owned Cruise "failed to disclose" full video and key crash details, DMV said.
It’s unclear, but GM has already tightened the reins by signaling that layoffs would be coming. Cruise has already laid off many of the contract workers who do maintenance and fleet operations for the company. But now it seems like Cruise employees are at risk of losing their jobs as well.
First, a Nissan Sentra "tragically struck and propelled the pedestrian into the path of the AV," Cruise said in a description of the incident. The CEO of self-driving car firm Cruise resigned yesterday following an accident in which a Cruise robotaxi dragged a pedestrian 20 feet. California officials accused Cruise of withholding key information and video after the accident, and the company's self-driving operations are on hold while federal authorities investigate. Morale at Cruise has been low since the October 2 incident, with employees pointing the finger at poor management that didn’t prioritize safety at the company. Without commercial permits to operate in San Francisco and an internal decision to pause its driverless fleets in other states, the company laid off contract workers, further deepening the malaise.
Vogt wanted Cruise to dominate the market much in the same way that Uber dominated Lyft. But in truth, Uber’s failed effort to launch driverless cars turned out to be way more instructive. Other car companies have sought to put some distance between themselves and the startups working on self-driving cars.
Dan Kan, who co-founded Cruise with Vogt and held a far less public-facing role, has also resigned, TechCrunch has confirmed with sources familiar with the matter. Cruise had been testing 300 robotaxis during the day when it could only give rides for free, and 100 robotaxis at night when it was allowed to charge for rides in less congested parts of San Francisco. Vogt earlier said most collisions were caused by inattentive or impaired human drivers, not the AVs. In October 2021, GM said it expected "new businesses" such as Cruise and its BrightDrop commercial EV business to grow from $2 billion to $80 billion during that timeframe.
"The AV detected a collision, bringing the vehicle to a stop; then attempted to pull over to avoid causing further road safety issues, pulling the individual forward approximately 20 feet." On Saturday, one day before resigning, Vogt reportedly apologized to staff in an email. Late last year, U.S. safety regulators said they were investigating reports that autonomous robotaxis run by Cruise can stop too quickly or unexpectedly quit moving, potentially stranding passengers. In one serious incident in October, the human driver of another vehicle struck a pedestrian in San Francisco at night, tossing her into the path of a Cruise self-driving car, which then drove over and dragged her. The resignation is a stunning fall from prominence for one of the tech industry’s most outspoken champions of self-driving cars. He leaves behind a company in deep crisis and an industry that is confronting increased public and regulatory scrutiny.
Queenie Wong is a state politics reporter covering tech and entertainment policy for the Los Angeles Times. Previously, she wrote about social media companies for CNET and the Mercury News. She also covered politics and education for the Statesman Journal in Salem, Ore. Growing up in Southern California, she started reading The Times as a kid and took her first journalism class in middle school.
