Basic Motors’ troubled robotaxi unit Cruise introduced Tuesday it could lay off roughly 50% of its workforce, together with CEO Marc Whitten and a number of other high executives, as the corporate transitions from autonomous ride-hailing to creating private self-driving autos.
The cuts have an effect on greater than 1,000 workers on the San Francisco-based autonomous automobile firm, which GM acquired in 2016 and has since invested almost USD 10 billion in creating. The layoffs come two months after GM mentioned it could cease funding Cruise’s robotaxi operations following a sequence of setbacks.
Among the many departing executives are Chief Human Assets Officer Nilka Thomas, Chief Security Officer Steve Kenner, and World Head of Public Coverage Rob Grant. Chief Know-how Officer Mo Elshenawy will stay till April to help with the transition.
Affected workers will obtain 60 days’ discover with full base pay, adopted by eight weeks of severance. These with greater than three years on the firm will get extra compensation primarily based on tenure.
The restructuring follows Cruise’s October 2023 suspension of operations after certainly one of its autonomous autos struck and dragged a pedestrian in San Francisco. The incident led to regulatory investigations and revelations that firm officers had not instantly disclosed key particulars to authorities.
Craig Glidden, Cruise’s president and chief administrative officer, mentioned in an inner e mail that the staffing discount displays the corporate’s strategic shift away from ride-hailing providers. About 88% of remaining workers work in engineering or associated roles.
GM, which not too long ago accomplished its full acquisition of Cruise, plans to redirect sources towards increasing its Tremendous Cruise driver help system and creating autonomous autos for particular person possession. The automaker expects to avoid wasting as much as USD 1 billion yearly by ending the robotaxi program.
