CRUISE

Kyle Vogt co-founded Cruise Automation in 2013. The original pitch was an aftermarket kit that could make any car semi-autonomous.

GM acquired Cruise in 2016 for about $1 billion, seeing it as their ticket to the autonomous future. With GM's manufacturing scale, Honda's investment, and SoftBank's billions, Cruise became one of the best-funded AV companies in history.

They launched a limited robotaxi service in San Francisco in 2022.

Cruise's business model was the same as Waymo's — autonomous robotaxi service, no human driver, revenue from per-ride fares. GM acquired Cruise in 2016 for $1 billion and poured another $10 billion into it over seven years.

The plan was to turn GM's fleet manufacturing expertise into a self-driving advantage. They built custom Origin vehicles — purpose-built robotaxis with no steering wheel.

The vision was beautiful. The execution was catastrophic.

Cruise robotaxi service (discontinued), Cruise Origin (purpose-built AV, never mass-produced)

Aggressive city expansion — operating in San Francisco, Phoenix, Austin, and Houston. Developed the Cruise Origin, a custom vehicle with no steering wheel designed exclusively for autonomous ride-hailing.

The strategy was to move fast, get regulatory approvals, and use GM's manufacturing might. The strategy outpaced the technology's readiness.

Everything. In October 2023, a Cruise robotaxi struck a pedestrian in San Francisco who had already been hit by another car — then dragged the person 20 feet while attempting to pull over.

California revoked Cruise's driverless permit, internal investigations revealed Cruise showed regulators an edited video omitting the dragging, CEO Kyle Vogt resigned, and GM wrote down billions. Cruise had been covering up safety incidents and misleading regulators for months.

General Motors (majority owner), Honda, Microsoft, Walmart, SoftBank Vision Fund, T. Rowe Price