Detroit Free Press
GM’s self-driving car arm will take driverless cars to Texas and Arizona this year
Jamie L. LaReau, Detroit Free Press – September 13, 2022
General Motors’ self-driving car subsidiary Cruise is expanding beyond San Francisco as it drives toward a goal of $1 billion in revenue by 2025.
In June, Cruise started operating its self-driving taxi service in San Francisco where it charges for rides in Chevrolet Bolt EVs that operate without a human safety driver. Cruise uses a fleet of 30 Bolts to ferry the paying passengers around parts of the city. Those Bolts are currently built at Orion Assembly plant in Orion Township.
Now the San Francisco-based Cruise, of which GM owns an 80% stake, will bring a driverless taxi-fleet to Austin, Texas, and Phoenix, Arizona, in the next three months, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt said Monday.
Initially, Cruise’s operations in Austin and Phoenix will be small to generate revenue, with a plan to scale up operations next year, Vogt told an audience at a Goldman Sachs conference Monday, where he also said Cruise aims to hit $1 billion in revenue by 2025, said Cruise spokeswoman Tiffany Testo.
Cruise has obtained the appropriate permits to use the driverless cars for ride-hailing and deliveries in Phoenix where it has been operating a self-driving delivery service with Walmart for some time, Testo said. Cruise started the pilot for that delivery service in 2020 and expanded it last year. In April, Walmart announced it had become an investor in Cruise.
“We’ve made over 10,000 deliveries there in the past few months,” Testo said. “We’re starting from zero footprint but believe the strong technical foundation we built in San Francisco will enable us to quickly and safely scale.”
Cruise was the first commercial driverless taxi system in a major U.S. city. But Waymo opened a fully autonomous commercial ride hail service to the public in October 2020 in suburban Chandler, Arizona.
On Thursday, GM subsidiary BrightDrop said it too plans to offer self-driving electric commercial delivery vehicles in the future. During a webcast presentation at the Evercore ISI 2nd Annual Technology Conference, BrightDrop CEO Travis Katz said the company is “actively” looking at how to apply autonomous driving technology to its commercial trucks. He said GM’s connection to Cruise will give BrightDrop a competitive advantage when the times comes to apply autonomous technology to the commercial delivery market.
More: GM’s joint venture considers location near Michigan border for 4th battery plant
More: GM reveals all-electric Blazer police pursuit vehicle designed with help from officers