GM's Cruise Robotaxi Service to Expand Later This Year in Austin, Phoenix

Cruise's Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Kyle Vogt announced that in the next 90 days and before the year ends, the robotaxi services of Cruise will be launched in Austin, Phoenix, which offers a driverless mode for the users, as reported by TechCrunch.

During the Goldman Sach's Communacopia and Technology Conference, Vogt said during his speech that through this new service that Cruise will be offering, no human safety operator will be needed behind the wheel during its use. He also clarified that the initial rides when it's released will be free to the public but users will be charged shortly after.

Expanding to Other Cities

For it to become a "self-driving" vehicle, Cruise's system needs to memorize the whole location including streets. With that, the company already mapped and drove the whole streets of Phoenix. Vogt also announced the expansion of the company to Austin without any experience on the map, so expect the planning to take longer.

Cruise is not closing its doors in San Francisco and Austin as places that offer robotaxi service. Expanding to other cities is also in the works within the company.

Comparing the two, it took Cruise 33 months to complete all of the permits needed for them to operate in California while in Phoenix, it only took them three works to finish all of the paper works. Because of this, it advanced the company's geographic scaling by six months.

Manufacturing the Origin, the purpose-built AV of Cruise will start operating soon for supplying new target markets. Vogt stated that "Looking at 2023, next year, things get really interesting on the growth side. There's gonna be thousands of AVs rolling out of the General Motors plant, including the first Origins. We'll be using those to light up many more markets and to start to generate meaningful revenue in those markets."

Crash Incident

Last June, a crash happened when a Cruise vehicle made an unprotected left turn that resulted in major injuries to occupants of both vehicles involved.

Following the incident, Cruise emailed CNBC a statement and said that the company provided "routine information" about the crash to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Cruise also updated the 80 self-driving robotaxis just this month.

Walmart Partnership

The partnership with Walmart was also talked about during his speech and he said that it is currently in the works. The deal states the expansion of Cruise as an autonomous delivery pilot in Arizona, in collaboration with Walmart. The deal brings Cruise's latest funding to $2.75 billion as reported by Bloomberg.

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Written by Inno Flores