GM Is Parking Its Ambitious Cruise Origin Driverless Vehicle
General Motors has decided to shelve the Origin autonomous vehicle it planned to launch through its Cruise ride-hailing service.
The shuttle-type electric vehicle was designed without any human driver controls. It featured sliding doors and two rows of seats facing each other.
Instead, it will continue to use the Chevrolet Bolt-based vehicles that have been part of the service for the past few years.
“This addresses the regulatory uncertainty we faced with the Origin because of its unique design. In addition, per-unit costs will be much lower, which will help Cruise optimize its resources,” GM CEO Mary Barra said in a second-quarter earnings note.
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Cruise is still recovering from a stoppage of operations last year in the wake of a accident involving a fully driverless vehicle and a pedestrian in San Francisco. The company has since resumed testing operations in Phoenix, Houston and Dallas with human supervision.
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The Origin was unveiled in 2020 and most recently slated to enter production at GM’s Factory Zero in Detroit-Hamtramck, Mich. The automaker has filed a petition with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration asking to allow it to deploy vehicles without any driver controls, but the request has not yet been approved.
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Tesla had announced plans to unveil a “robotaxi” on August 8, delayed it to an unspecified date this year due to changes to its design, Elon Musk confirmed this month. The vehicles will be operated by the company, according to Musk, while owners of Teslas with the “Full Self-Driving” feature will be able to add their cars to the fleet when they are not using them.
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