(Credit: picture alliance/Contributor/picture alliance via Getty Images)
General Motors (GM) has completed its acquisition of Cruise and will use its technology to boost GM's Super Cruise autonomous driving technology.
The move marks a new chapter for Cruise. In December, GM announced that it would no longer fund Cruise as a separate entity. That effectively killed Cruise's robotaxi business, which was competing with Waymo until several high-profile incidents in San Francisco forced it to take a lengthy break and, later, put safety drivers back behind the wheel.
At the time, GM owned about 90% of Cruise, but it is now "a wholly owned subsidiary of GM." The Cruise team will be folded into GM's core business and work on developing autonomous driving systems for GM vehicles.
Not the entire team, however. GM laid off 50% of Cruise's workforce today, NBC reports. "With our move away from the ride-hail business and toward providing autonomous vehicles to customers alongside GM, our staffing and resource needs have dramatically changed,” Cruise President Craig Glidden wrote in an email to employees.
Remaining employees will work on merging Cruise's software with Super Cruise, GM's similarly named Level 2 driving software. It's already available on newer vehicles (we took it for a spin in the Chevrolet Equinox EV), and allows drivers to take their hands off the wheel on eligible roads, though they must remain alert. Cruise vehicles were Level 4, which does not require a driver.
GM did not say when the integration would be complete, or what new capabilities it would unlock for Super Cruise subscribers. The next announcement we may see is a push for Level 3 self-driving, which Honda announced at CES 2025. At that level, drivers can take their hands off the wheel, as well as their eyes off the road, to perform another task such as sending a text or chatting with passengers.