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General Motors (NYSE:GM) is suspending production of the autonomous Cruise Origin van, Forbes reported, just two weeks after its subsidiary Cruise paused all operations nationwide.
“Because a lot of this is in flux, we did make the decision with GM (GM) to pause production of the Origin,” Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt told employees at an all hands meeting on Monday.
The executive noted that Cruise already produced hundreds of Origin vans, saying this would be “more than enough” for the near term.
“We are finishing production on a small number of pre-commercial vehicles and after that, plan to temporarily pause production,” said a GM (GM) spokesperson.
Vogt also responded on Hacker News to claims that Cruise’s vehicles aren’t fully autonomous and require support from remote staff.
“Cruise autonomous vehicle are being remotely assisted 2%-4% of the time on average, in complex urban environments,” he said. “This is low enough already that there isn’t a huge cost benefit to optimizing much further, especially given how useful it is to have humans review things in certain situations.”
Cruise had paused operations last month as California suspended its self-driving permits after a hit-and-run incident.
GM (GM) previously projected that Cruise could generate up to $50B revenue yearly from 2030. Investing Group Leader JR Research warned that the California ban “put further pressure on GM (GM) to justify whether its long-term forecasts will pan out, considering the significant investments (potentially leading to a negative value?).
