GM’s Cruise suspends supervised and manual car trips, expands probes

Cruise said on Tuesday it will pause all supervised and manual car trips in the U.S. and expand the scope of investigations at the robotaxi operator in the aftermath of an accident that initially led to the suspension of driverless vehicle operations. “This orderly pause is a further step to rebuild public trust while we undergo a full safety review,” Cruise said in a blog post. “We will continue to operate our vehicles in closed course training environments and maintain an active simulation program in order to stay focused on advancing AV technology.” The actions follow a regularly scheduled board meeting in San Francisco this week. Cruise also said that GM‘s Executive Vice President of Legal and Policy and Cruise board member, will be expanding his support of Cruise and working closely with Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt and the Cruise Senior Leadership Team to oversee the workstreams around Transparency and Community Engagement. Cruise’s Legal & Policy, Communications, and Finance teams will report directly to Craig, and he will assume the title of Chief Administrative Officer for Cruise. He will continue in his current role at GM. Cruise also noted that it previously hired the independent, third-party engineering consulting firm, Exponent, to conduct a technical root cause analysis of the October 2 incident. That work is ongoing, and the Board plans to expand Exponent’s remit to include a comprehensive review of our safety systems and technology.