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- LAPD seeks public’s help identifying driver, victims in street takeover hit-and-run
- Major Supreme Court case could upend California’s homelessness policies
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- Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt resigns from GM-owned robotaxi unit
- Some writers and readers wrestle with tough subjects at Los Angeles Times Festival of Books
- Kyle Vogt Resigns As CEO Of GM’s Cruise Robotaxi Unit
Kyle Vogt has resigned as CEO of Cruise, General Motors’ autonomous vehicle unit, as questions build about the safety of self-driving cars. 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.
Cruise CEO and cofounder Kyle Vogt calls it quits - Electrek
Cruise CEO and cofounder Kyle Vogt calls it quits.
Posted: Mon, 20 Nov 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]
LAPD seeks public’s help identifying driver, victims in street takeover hit-and-run
We’ve got to come back with a new plan that is grounded in what we’ve learned. “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. Late last year, U.S. safety regulators said they were investigating reports that autonomous robotaxis run by Cruise can stop too quickly or unexpectedly quit moving, potentially stranding passengers.
Major Supreme Court case could upend California’s homelessness policies
Initially, that means taking more of a direct hand in Cruise’s operation. Barra reportedly told employees that GM general counsel Craig Glidden will serve as Cruise’s co-president alongside Mo Elshenawy, who will also become chief technology officer. Former Tesla president Jon McNeill, who’s been a board member at GM for several years, was named vice chairman of the Cruise board alongside Barra.
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Vogt's decision to step down, announced late Sunday, follows a recent recall of all 950 Cruise vehicles to update software after one of them dragged a pedestrian to the side of a San Francisco street in early October. Kyle Vogt has resigned as CEO of Cruise, General Motors' autonomous vehicle unit, as questions build about the safety of self-driving cars. It all came to a head after a serious incident which began when an unknown human hit-and-run driver hit a jaywalking pedestrian while traveling in the lane next to a Cruise vehicle. The victim was bounced off the first car and into the lane in front of the Cruise, which could not avoid hitting her, though it tried to stop. That would have been unfortunate, but with no fault to Cruise, except for what happened next. 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.
On Monday, co-founder and Chief Product Officer Daniel Kan also resigned, the company said. Complete digital access to quality FT journalism with expert analysis from industry leaders. Alphabet is still founder-led, though much less so than before, and even less so at Waymo, though one of the CEOs is from the original Google Car team. Zoox lost one of its two founders but has the other in the CTO role. In spite of its mistakes, Cruise has also been the subject of unfair treatment. The San Francisco Fire Department accused them of blocking an ambulance, delaying the journey of a patient to hospital, where they died.
Vogt's resignation comes roughly two years after he was reappointed as CEO, following an unexpected departure by Dan Ammann, a former GM executive, in December 2021.
This isn’t the first time Cruise has gone through a leadership shuffle. Barra ousted Dan Ammann as Cruise CEO in December 2021, replacing him with Vogt, who at the time was chief technology officer. Ammann, who had once competed with Barra for the top spot at GM, wanted to keep the focus on robotaxis, while Barra and the GM board wanted to go big, including putting Cruise’s technology in luxury Cadillac vehicles. The announcement at CES certainly seemed to confirm that version of events. The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) last month suspended Cruise's permits for autonomous vehicle deployment and driverless testing.
Some writers and readers wrestle with tough subjects at Los Angeles Times Festival of Books
I don’t have access to the internal details of all these incidents as would be needed to make a full judgement, but it could be it would say Cruise pushed too hard. With that guarantee, the companies must face the public’s difficulty in comparing human unsafety with machine unsafety. We’re picky and don’t want to be run over by robots, but accept being run over by drunks. "To my former colleagues at Cruise and GM—you’ve got this!" he went on to write. "Regardless of what originally brought you to work on AVs, remember why this work matters. The status quo on our roads sucks, but together we’ve proven there is something far better around the corner." "As CEO, I take responsibility for the situation Cruise is in today," he wrote in an email to staff first reported by Reuters.
Kyle Vogt Resigns As CEO Of GM’s Cruise Robotaxi Unit
Cruise has not announced when or where it will resume driverless operations. The company’s main operations were historically based in San Francisco, but Cruise lost its permits to operate there following the accident. Cruise began expanding its paid service area in the Phoenix area in August 2023. Problems at Cruise could slow the deployment of fully autonomous vehicles that carry passengers without human drivers on board.
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. The automaker’s driverless car subsidiary, Cruise, announced last night the resignation of Kyle Vogt as CEO. The decision came over a month after an incident in which a hit-and-run victim became pinned under a Cruise vehicle and then was dragged 20 feet to the side of the road. As a result, California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended Cruise’s permit to operate driverless cars in the state.
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. "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. "We will continue to advance AV technology in service of our mission to make transportation safer, cleaner and more accessible." In evaluating if a robotaxi pilot is going too fast, the public will tend to focus on incidents, and so the public’s representatives also will do this. No robotaxi service, and certainly no pilot, will be without incidents, including serious ones.
Morale is reportedly extremely low, as can be seen by how frequently staff are leaking internal information. According to its most recent quarterly update, GM has lost roughly $1.9 billion on Cruise between January and September 2023, including $732 million in the third quarter alone. According to its latest quarterly update, GM lost nearly $2 billion on Cruise between January and September 2023—some $732 million of it in the third quarter alone. The mishandling of the information resulted in parent company GM slashing spending and taking greater control of Cruise. A Cruise spokesperson declined to comment on the company’s strategy.
The GM subsidiary already had a presence in Phoenix before it pulled its entire U.S.-based fleet last year following an incident in San Francisco that left a pedestrian stuck under and dragged by a Cruise robotaxi. Cruise’s vice president of engineering, Mo Elshenawy, will step in as the company’s president and CTO, spokesperson Aaron McLear said in a written statement. Craig Glidden, GM’s executive vice president of legal and policy, who was appointed last week as Cruise’s chief administrative officer, will also serve as the unit’s president. Cruise has insisted it showed video of the entire incident—including the dragging—to state and federal regulators. The company has since halted all taxi and testing operations across the nation, including in Austin, Texas, where it also offered paid, Uber-like robotaxi rides.
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