WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Mounting losses at self-driving car companies have sparked investor concerns and forced some companies to close factories, a top executive at General Motors Co’s self-driving unit Cruise said on Monday, Reuters reported. , so this year will focus on cutting costs.
“We’re going to continue to look at the hardware and the software, both the cost of the parts and the number of parts on the vehicle, and we’ll continue to drive down costs as we go,” Cruise Chief Operating Officer Gil West said at a tech conference.
General Motors burned nearly $2 billion on the Cruise business last year (Currently about 13.92 billion CNY), but Cruise did not disclose details of this year’s spending estimates.
Fully autonomous vehicles have not rolled out as quickly as initially expected due to onerous regulations, safety investigations and daunting technology. Ford Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG announced last fall that they were shutting down their Argo AI self-driving division to focus on driver-assistance technologies that offer more immediate payoffs. Cruise rival Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving technology unit, has laid off more than 8% of its workforce this year.
West noted that Cruise offers limited service in San Francisco, and that its fleet of small Chevrolet Bolts equipped with self-driving technology have racked up more than 1 million miles driven without a driver. The company is also developing a fully self-driving car from the ground up, called Origin, with no steering wheel and just subway-like doors for ride-sharing and delivery.
Origin is in the final stages of certification and ready for full production, according to West, who called it a “big unlock” for the company this year. Most of the barriers to entry, including technical challenges and regulatory clearances, are expected to be resolved by 2023, helping the company expand and grow quickly, West said.
