GM-owned robotaxi unit: Cruise CEO and founder Kyle Vogt resigns

Table Of Content

• The 50 best Hollywood books of all time
• Tesla pauses German production after Red Sea shipping attacks
• Saturday may have been the greatest day ever in SF and we have the photos to prove it
• GM’s Cruise CEO resigns amid concerns over driverless car safety
• Cruise's Kyle Vogt resigns as CEO of the robotaxi company
• Renault to sell 5% stake to Nissan as carmakers rebalance alliance

"The startup I launched in my garage has given over 250,000 driverless rides across several cities, with each ride inspiring people with a small taste of the future," he also wrote. 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.

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If he had wanted to create a more transparent project he could have. But the way the public reacts to incidents holds some blame in making such transparency frightening. Even Waymo, which tries to be more transparent than Cruise, has trouble doing it. In a field where there are only two major players, it may not be much to say that “Cruise was the worst at it” but it is nonetheless true.

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The move comes in the wake of a serious road incident which led the California DMV to order Cruise’s vehicles off the road and Cruise to voluntarily stop service in other U.S. locations. According to the Times, the company “put a priority on the speed of the program over safety.” In many ways, it echoes Uber’s infamous approach to self-driving cars, which cut corners on safety in order to get more cars on the road. Eventually, an Uber self-driving car killed a woman crossing the street in Arizona, which resulted in the company shuttering the whole division. Most automakers have already dialed back their autonomous ambitions. Last year, Ford and Volkswagen pulled their funding from Argo AI, forcing the company to cease operations.

Saturday may have been the greatest day ever in SF and we have the photos to prove it

GM paused production of Cruise’s custom vehicle, known as the Origin, which is key to their strategy. They put a hold on employee stock redemptions, though these have been partially restored. The letter to the DMV from Cruise’s senior counsel which omitted the dragging was disclosed, and more.

Even before the October incident, Cruise and Vogt had faced criticism for an aggressive approach to self-driving technology. First responders in San Francisco said the cars didn’t always react appropriately to the presence of police and fire vehicles. In August, a fire truck responding to an emergency with sirens on collided with a Cruise vehicle in an intersection after the vehicle failed to pull over. In mid-October, Cruise said it had improved its technology’s responses to emergency vehicles. The accident on 2 October proved that driverless technology still has some way to go before it is rolled out more widely. Another car knocked a pedestrian into the path of a Cruise car, which initially stopped before driving another 6 metres (20ft), dragging the pedestrian along and seriously injuring her.

His announcement comes amid upheaval at the company, which last month had its permit to operate its groundbreaking robotaxi service in San Francisco suspended by state regulators. Mary Barra, the General Motors chief executive, promoted Mo Elshenawy, who is executive vice-president of engineering at Cruise, to chief technology officer, after Vogt’s resignation, according to an internal email reported by TechCrunch. Among the management changes announced, Mo Elshenawy, a current executive vice president of engineering at Cruise, will take the role of president and CTO. Craig Glidden, who recently took a role as chief administrator at Cruise, will add president to his titles, putting two men in the role of president. This seems to have been an eventful weekend for CEOs of world-changing AI companies. "Today I resigned from my position as CEO of Cruise," co-founder Kyle Vogt wrote in a post on twitter.com.

Cruise's Kyle Vogt resigns as CEO of the robotaxi company

Vogt’s resignation comes approximately six weeks after a critical October 2 accident in the company’s hometown of San Francisco that left a woman in critical condition for weeks. In that incident, the pedestrian was crossing a San Francisco street when she was hit by a human driver and flung into the path of an oncoming Cruise autonomous vehicle, which dragged her approximately 20 feet. Problems at Cruise could slow the deployment of fully autonomous vehicles that carry passengers without human drivers on board. It also could bring stronger federal regulation of the vehicles, which are carrying passengers in more cities nationwide. "The results of our ongoing reviews will inform additional next steps as we work to build a better Cruise centered around safety, transparency and trust," the company said in a statement.

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Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt Resigns After Weeks Of Crisis - Forbes

Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt Resigns After Weeks Of Crisis.

Posted: Sun, 19 Nov 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]

Kyle Vogt, the serial entrepreneur who co-founded and led Cruise from a startup in a garage through its acquisition and ownership by General Motors, has resigned, according to an email sent to employees Sunday evening that TechCrunch has viewed. “The status quo on our roads sucks, but together we’ve proven there is something far better around the corner,” Vogt wrote in a message to Cruise workers posted on X. 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.

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Still, General Motors reaffirmed its faith in the Cruise founder in 2021, when GM veteran Dan Ammann left the company. Vogt, then CTO at Cruise, was appointed as interim CEO before permanently taking the role in 2022. The Cruise vehicle then moved "rightward before braking aggressively, but still made contact with the pedestrian," the company said.

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 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.

Cruise's C.E.O. Quits as the Driverless Carmaker Aims to Rebuild Trust - The New York Times

Cruise's C.E.O. Quits as the Driverless Carmaker Aims to Rebuild Trust.

Posted: Sun, 19 Nov 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]

The state’s Department of Motor Vehicles alleged that the company had failed to disclose that its vehicle attempted to pull out of traffic after the crash, dragging the victim forward about 20 feet. In a separate internal email, also viewed by TechCrunch, GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra announced that Mo Elshenawy, who is executive vice president of engineering at Cruise, will serve as president and CTO for Cruise. Craig Glidden, a Cruise board member and GM’s EVP of legal and policy who was recently put in charge as chief administrative officer at Cruise, will continue in that role. Jon McNeill, a member of GM’s board, has been appointed vice chairman of the Cruise board. McNeill, who joined the Cruise board recently and was previously chief operating officer at Lyft and president of Tesla, will now serve alongside Cruise Board Chair Mary Barra. General Motors has yet to appoint a permanent Chief Safety Officer, though with the help of an independent engineering consulting firm, it continues to conduct an expanded safety probe on the infamous freak accident.

On Sept 30, just a few days before this incident, I happened to write, “A nightmare would be a car hitting and dragging somebody, oblivious. Sensors that see the sides and rear can help, some cars don't have those. A car could also detect unusual acceleration.” This was not the first time I spoke of this, I had previously advised a client of this issue, though not Cruise. (I advised Cruise briefly when it was getting started, but not for compensation or at this level of detail.) As such I consider both dragging, and hiding it, to be on the “this shouldn’t happen, even by bad luck” list.