Reuters reported that the CEO of Cruise, the self-driving car unit of General Motors, apologized for the company’s situation after an accident caused its self-driving car business to be suspended and a safety review conducted.
In an email to employees, CEO Kyle Vogt also said the company would make a new takeover bid that would allow employees to sell stock (two days after Cruise withdrew its previous takeover bid).
“I am sorry that we have veered off course under my leadership, and this has profound consequences for Cruise,” Vogt wrote in an email.
“As CEO, I take responsibility for the situation Cruise is currently in. There are no excuses or sugarcoating what happened. We need to redouble our efforts on safety, transparency and community engagement.”
Vogt also noted that the way the company works with regulators, the media and the public “must improve.”
Attached the incident detail:
In August this year, ten Cruise Robotaxi vehicles suddenly stalled on the road, causing a traffic jam. A few days later, a Robotaxi crashed into a road construction area and got stuck in the wet concrete; another Robotaxi hit a fire truck at an intersection, causing its passengers to be sent to the hospital.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles announced on October 25 that Cruise's self-driving cars pose an "unreasonable risk" to public safety and "fail to meet standards for on-road operations."
Cruise has suspended all public operations of its self-driving cars and will issue a recall for 950 vehicles.
Cruise is facing multiple federal investigations into the safety of its vehicles, including two cases in which its self-driving cars failed to yield to pedestrians on sidewalks.