GM autonomy – General Motors shut down its Cruise robotaxi division in 2024, but a top executive says GM’s autonomy strategy in personal cars is designed to transfer to driverless ride-hailing. As GM rebuilds its eyes-off highway efforts and reshapes teams after Cruise’s co
General Motors pulled the plug on Cruise in 2024. ending a robotaxi bet that once put the automaker near the front of the pack. But the lights didn’t go out on GM’s self-driving ambitions. By shifting resources toward autonomy for personal cars. the company is signaling that it still wants a seat at the robotaxi table—just on different terms. and on a different timeline.
Sterling Anderson. GM’s chief product officer and the former head of Tesla’s Autopilot program. said in an interview with Business Insider that GM’s autonomy work for cars can be applied to driverless ride-hailing services in the future. His description of GM’s approach is built around breaking the driving experience into pieces—then focusing on where self-driving help is most useful for car owners.
The plan, Anderson said, starts with long stretches of highway driving. From there, GM would expand to arterial roads and then to urban centers. Over time. he added. GM’s autonomous driving systems should be able to operate in enough regions to make a robotaxi service viable. He made the connection directly: “Ultimately, the two converge. Our operating region looks identical to the operating region of a robotaxi company,” he said. “The question at that point becomes, ‘Why not offer them in a robotaxi-type application as well?’”.
GM’s pivot has a clear backstory. The company was once viewed as one of the leading challengers to Alphabet’s Waymo robotaxis. It poured more than $10 billion into Cruise, the robotaxi startup it acquired in 2016. But the Cruise division was shut down in 2024 after regulatory hurdles and a safety incident forced Cruise to pause testing in California.
Since then, GM has shifted its attention to hands-off, eyes-on driver assistance technology called Super Cruise. In April, GM said customers have driven one billion hands-free miles with the feature, and the company plans to introduce eyes-off highway driving in 2028.
That change has come with rebuilding inside GM’s autonomous-driving ranks. Business Insider reported in December that GM hired Ronalee Mann. a former Cruise and Tesla executive. for its renewed self-driving focus within the company. Last week, The Information reported that GM has rehired about 100 former Cruise employees to develop eyes-off driving capabilities.
Even as GM takes this route, other legacy automakers and EV startups are pushing forward with their own robotaxi strategies. Hyundai-backed Motional launched a robotaxi service with Uber in Las Vegas this year. with a plan to commercialize fully driverless rides there by the end of 2026. Rivian is also developing autonomous driving for a future robotaxi fleet. and the EV maker announced a $1.25 billion robotaxi deal with Uber in March.
GM’s bet. as Anderson frames it. is that the autonomy needed for future robotaxis won’t arrive as a sudden leap—it will be assembled step by step. as driving capabilities expand to more complex environments. When he was asked whether GM will be ready if the market shifts decisively toward robotaxis. Anderson said. “We’ll be ready for it.”.
“If that’s where the world goes, our autonomous vehicles will be capable of being robotaxis as well,” he added.
Taken together. the sequence looks less like a retreat than a reroute: Cruise was shut down after regulatory and safety setbacks. and GM redirected investment into Super Cruise and eyes-off development. The company may not be chasing robotaxis with the same structure it once used at Cruise. but the goal Anderson describes—operating in regions sufficient for a robotaxi service—keeps the race alive.
General Motors GM Cruise robotaxi Sterling Anderson Super Cruise autonomy Tesla Autopilot Waymo Uber Motional Las Vegas Rivian eyes-off driving Ronalee Mann