Robotaxi company Cruise has been fully-acquired by General Motors (GM) just two months after the automaker giant said it would stop funding the autonomous ride-hailing company.
In a meeting with the Cruise Board of Directors it was announced that GM would obtain full-control over the robotaxi company and merge its operations to re-focus its efforts.
As a wholly-owned subsidiary of GM, Cruise is expected to work collaboratively with the automaker on developing advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous systems for personal vehicles.
GM’s Senior Vice President of Software and Engineering, Dave Richardson, said:
“By combining the specialised technology and talent at Cruise with our team developing Super Cruise, we’ll have the ability to accelerate our work on both assisted-driving and autonomous driving. We look forward to teaming with Cruise to accelerate our work together.”
It’s existing autonomous tech will be used to develop GM’s Super Cruise assisted driving system, a software platform that allows hands-free driving.
A spokesperson for Cruise reportedly said 50% of the workforce will be laid off after the acquisition, according to The Verge.
Cruise spokesperson, Sara Autio, said in a statement:
“We are grateful for their passion and contributions to help us reach this stage, and our focus is on supporting them into their next chapter with severance packages and career support. While not an easy decision, we are focused on combining efforts with General Motors to accelerate autonomy at scale on personal autonomous vehicles.”
Last year in July the CEO of GM, Mary Barra, announced the indefinite end to production of specific Cruise driverless models. This was followed by GM announcing a cease of funding to Cruise in December.
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