Cruise receives $ 5 billion from GM for its autonomous shuttles

A lot has happened in autonomous driving in the past decade. More and more competitors are entering the market and want to be the first company to roll out driverless transport on a large scale. Although there are already some services that transport passengers from A to B in an autonomous vehicle, their operation is limited to small areas.

One of these providers is Cruise, which now wants to get started with a financial injection from General Motors. The car company has pledged a total of 5 billion US dollars (around 4.12 billion euros) to the company, the money will be used for the broad rollout of its own technology. In total, Cruise has up to 10 billion dollars (approx. 8.24 billion euros) at its disposal.

Up to now there has always been news about autonomous driving from Cruise, but no commercial operation with its own shuttles has yet started. Only employees can experience the technology up close in an initial beta operation. A few years ago there was talk of starting a first attempt in San Francisco by 2019, but the plans were then abandoned.

Even so, it recently received approval from California’s transportation authority to test fully autonomous vehicles in San Francisco. By 2023 it should also be ready in Dubai. So far, no exact start date is known, so it remains to be seen whether it will start this year.

Because the approval is initially limited to autonomous vehicles as we know them today. The model named “Origin” by Cruise takes a different approach and does not have the usual control mechanisms such as a steering wheel on board. An additional special permit from the local motor vehicle authority is required for this, but these are still very limited nowadays.

Own opinion:

It’s nice that autonomous vehicles are increasingly coming to the fore. It remains to be seen when the technology will finally be rolled out on a broad scale; use only in small areas should not make sense, especially in this country. But maybe the future will teach us better.

Via The Verge