GM's Cruise Laying Off Hundreds to Slash Costs
The hits keep on coming for GM’s Cruise. After high-profile crashes and being forced to temporarily shutter operations in California, the autonomous vehicle unit announced yesterday that it would lay off a quarter of its workforce in a move that sees around 900 people losing their jobs.
Cruise already fired its chief operating officer and eight other executives earlier this week and has talked for a while about reducing its operational costs, so the layoffs aren’t entirely unexpected. A GM spokesperson told Reuters that the company “supports the difficult employment decisions made by Cruise as it reflects their more deliberate path forward, with safety as the north star.”
In terms of that path forward, Cruise’s statement after the layoffs is a good indication that changes are coming.
“This reflects our new future and a more deliberate go-to-market path, meaning less immediate need for field, commercial operations, and corporate staffing.”
Cruise’s vehicles had been running into awkward and inconvenient issues on California’s roads for a while, but the early October incident, in which a Cruise car dragged a pedestrian 20 feet down a city street, was the last straw for state regulators. The group suspended Cruise’s testing permit, leading the company to halt operations across the country and issue a recall for several vehicles.
While the path forward for Cruise looks bumpy, its challenges may pump the brakes on the entire industry. GM’s programs were some of the most high-profile, but Google/Alphabet and others have similar operations that will be under more direct scrutiny going forward.
[Image: Sundry Photography via Shutterstock]
Become a TTAC insider. Get the latest news, features, TTAC takes, and everything else that gets to the truth about cars first by subscribing to our newsletter.
Chris grew up in, under, and around cars, but took the long way around to becoming an automotive writer. After a career in technology consulting and a trip through business school, Chris began writing about the automotive industry as a way to reconnect with his passion and get behind the wheel of a new car every week. He focuses on taking complex industry stories and making them digestible by any reader. Just don’t expect him to stay away from high-mileage Porsches.
More by Chris Teague
Comments
Join the conversation
Cruise. Ex. #29 - EvilGM.
If you invested $1,000 into General Motors' 2010 IPO, you'd have $1,083 today (not including dividends).
If you invested $1,000 into Tesla's 2010 IPO, you'd have $222,740 today