GM Lays Off 50% of Cruise Employees After Exiting Robotaxi Business

General Motors has begun laying off workers at its defunct robotaxi company Cruise. In December, the automaker stopped investing in Cruise, and now about 50% of its employees are out of a job.

Ever since GM announced its exit from the robotaxi business, the 2,300 Cruise team members could only speculate their fates. Now, it seems a little over 1,100 workers are being let go.

“We are grateful for their passion and contributions to help us reach this stage, and our focus is on supporting them into their next chapter with severance packages and career support,” said Cruise spokesperson Sara Autio, per The Verge. “While not an easy decision, we are focused on combining efforts with General Motors to accelerate autonomy at scale on personal autonomous vehicles.”

Some workers, mostly engineers, were given offers to stay, but they will likely be moved to GM to further develop driver assist programs like Super Cruise. The employees affected by the layoffs were given 60 days’ notice, according to the company, and they will receive eight weeks’ severance and full pay until the last day of their termination from Cruise. Workers with tenures of three years or more will receive additional pay.

Per CNBC, Cruise CEO Marc Whitten, Chief Safety Officer Steve Kenner, and a handful of other executives are also leaving as of this week. Cruise’s chief technology officer and president, Mo Elshenawy, is staying until at least April.

GM Pulls the Plug on Cruise

Noting that autonomous robotaxis aren’t really GM’s main business, CEO Mary Barra decided two months ago that Cruise funding should be halted. To make the GM subsidiary profitable, various regulatory obstacles would need to be tackled, and the automotive company didn’t want to keep throwing money at the project. Instead, GM intends to focus on driverless cars customers can buy.

Once considered a leader in robotaxi development, Cruise got into some legal trouble after submitting a false report related to an October 2023 accident involving a pedestrian. One of its self-driving vehicles struck a woman in San Francisco, but Cruise’s report to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) purportedly left out crucial details of the incident. As a result, Cruise had to pay a $500,000 fine and enact a safety compliance program.

According to Barra, GM will save $1 billion by shutting down the Cruise unit. While half of Cruise’s employees will be laid off, GM’s restructuring of the business could lead to other collaborations and a renewed focus on in-house autonomous driving technologies for private vehicles.