A Cruise vehicle in San Francisco in 2023. (Cruise)
Cruise, the embattled self-driving car subsidiary of General Motors, has laid off 101 more employees across the Bay Area, marking the latest round of job cuts as the company scales back its once ambitious robotaxi efforts.
According to WARN notices filed with California’s Employment Development Department, the layoffs took effect July 3 and are permanent.
These cuts follow a broader restructuring effort that began earlier this year after GM assumed full ownership of Cruise.
In February, the company announced plans to eliminate nearly half its workforce — about 1,000 people — as it shifted focus from autonomous ride-hailing.
Cruise has struggled to recover from a high-profile incident last year in which one of its driverless vehicles struck a pedestrian. State regulators suspended its autonomous vehicle permits, and GM subsequently halted funding, citing safety issues and escalating losses.
“By combining the specialized technology and talent at Cruise with our team developing Super Cruise, we’ll have the ability to accelerate our work on both assisted-driving and autonomous driving,” said Dave Richardson, GM’s senior vice president of software and services engineering, earlier this year.
While Cruise has ceased public operations, its vehicles have recently been spotted on Bay Area roads. GM confirmed to Wired that a small number of Cruise Bolts are being used in internal testing to advance its driver-assistance systems, without carrying passengers.
