Table Of Content
- Poet Victoria Chang touches on feminism, grief and art at L.A. Times Festival of Books
- Electric scooter rider critically injured in hit-and-run, San Francisco police say
- GM's Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt resigns from company
- Cruise CEO and co-founder resigns after self-driving cars suspended in California
- Cruise's Kyle Vogt resigns as CEO of the robotaxi company
When the dragging incident happened, they worked hard to get out the message that another driver was at fault. That’s an unsurprising desire, since any company lives in fear of the crashes where they are at fault. Somehow this led to the non-disclosure of the mistake their software did make in this incident. Rather than sit back and let driverless cars come to them eventually, Barra insisted on GM staying in the driver’s seat. And now it has to deal with the fallout when that company’s “move fast and break things” culture has resulted in a crisis.
Poet Victoria Chang touches on feminism, grief and art at L.A. Times Festival of Books
No robotaxi service, and certainly no pilot, will be without incidents, including serious ones. The question is rather whether the level of these reaches a level of being unacceptably unsafe. The human drivers these robotaxis are replacing are unsafe, but we (for now) deem them acceptably unsafe. It would be an error to halt development of robotaxis that will make the roads safer if they meet the same “acceptably unsafe” level, or beat it as Cruise claims. Vogt and Kan, who more recently held the chief product officer role, founded the autonomous vehicle company in 2013.
Electric scooter rider critically injured in hit-and-run, San Francisco police say
Other car companies have sought to put some distance between themselves and the startups working on self-driving cars. But GM has stayed bullish, insisting that the billions of dollars it was sinking into the technology (GM has lost $8.2 billion on Cruise since 2017) would eventually result in a safer future — and a huge payout for the company. Kyle Vogt has resigned as CEO of Cruise, General Motors’ autonomous vehicle unit, as questions build about the safety of self-driving cars. Kyle Vogt has resigned as CEO of Cruise, General Motors' autonomous vehicle unit, as questions build about the safety of self-driving cars.
GM's Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt resigns from company
Zoox lost one of its two founders but has the other in the CTO role. Employee discontent was further inflamed last week when Cruise suspended its employee share-selling program for the fourth quarter. Sources who spoke to TechCrunch on the condition of anonymity said they could lose upwards of tens of thousands of dollars as a result of this decision. Regardless of what originally brought you to work on AVs, remember why this work matters. The status quo on our roads sucks, but together we’ve proven there is something far better around the corner.
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The agency alleged the self-driving-car company, which reportedly had roughly 400 cars operating in San Francisco, withheld video of a Cruise robotaxi dragging a person down a street. Later that month, Cruise suspended operations across all of its fleets and said it was working to strengthen public trust. The automaker’s driverless car subsidiary, Cruise, announced last night the resignation of Kyle Vogt as CEO.
Morale is reportedly extremely low, as can be seen by how frequently staff are leaking internal information. It’s unclear, but GM has already tightened the reins by signaling that layoffs would be coming. Cruise has already laid off many of the contract workers who do maintenance and fleet operations for the company. But now it seems like Cruise employees are at risk of losing their jobs as well.
Cruise CEO and co-founder resigns after self-driving cars suspended in California
The decision came over a month after an incident in which a hit-and-run victim became pinned under a Cruise vehicle and then was dragged 20 feet to the side of the road. As a result, California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended Cruise’s permit to operate driverless cars in the state. The accident, and the consequent licence revocation, was a significant setback for Cruise and for the autonomous driving industry. Companies are racing to develop software capable of driving cars in busy cities while also convincing regulators and the public that it can be safer than human drivers. A battle arose between the city and both Cruise and its competitor Waymo, but both companies seemed to be doing okay, because the city does not have jurisdiction over driving—that belongs to the state of California.
Cruise has insisted it showed video of the entire incident—including the dragging—to state and federal regulators. The company has since halted all taxi and testing operations across the nation, including in Austin, Texas, where it also offered paid, Uber-like robotaxi rides. It recalled the technology involved in the October crash, which it said was able to be repaired via an over-the-air update. It also announced a series of moves that the company says are dedicated to “rebuilding trust,” including third-party reviews of its safety operations and culture.
Cruise's Kyle Vogt resigns as CEO of the robotaxi company
Cruise CEO And Co-Founder Kyle Vogt Steps Down - Motor1
Cruise CEO And Co-Founder Kyle Vogt Steps Down.
Posted: Mon, 20 Nov 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]
Our approach is working with regulators, press, the public, and other stakeholders simply must improve. We’ve got to come back with a new plan that is grounded in what we’ve learned. Late last year, U.S. safety regulators said they were investigating reports that autonomous robotaxis run by Cruise can stop too quickly or unexpectedly quit moving, potentially stranding passengers. His resignation follows an accident where a pedestrian who was struck by another vehicle became trapped underneath a Cruise robotaxi, which dragged her as it attempted to pull over. Rescuers needed to use the jaws of life to free her after Cruise disabled the vehicle. Morale at Cruise has been low since the October 2 incident, with employees pointing the finger at poor management that didn’t prioritize safety at the company.
"Regardless of what originally brought you to work on AVs, remember why this work matters. The status quo on our roads sucks, but together we’ve proven there is something far better around the corner." A spokesperson for Cruise said the company had accepted Vogt’s resignation. “Cruise is still just getting started, and I believe it has a great future ahead,” Vogt said on X. He was named CEO in 2022 and formerly held that position from 2013 to 2019, according to his LinkedIn profile. Alphabet is still founder-led, though much less so than before, and even less so at Waymo, though one of the CEOs is from the original Google Car team.
The DMV states they were not shown the video of this dragging, though Cruise insists they were shown it multiple times. However, a written statement from Cruise to the DMV the morning after the crash omitted this very important detail. This was also the case in my discussions with Cruise—while I asked the video be stopped before the incident, I asked a number of questions that should have elicited information about the dragging, but did not. It all came to a head after a serious incident which began when an unknown human hit-and-run driver hit a jaywalking pedestrian while traveling in the lane next to a Cruise vehicle. The victim was bounced off the first car and into the lane in front of the Cruise, which could not avoid hitting her, though it tried to stop. That would have been unfortunate, but with no fault to Cruise, except for what happened next.
Vogt's resignation comes after General Motors installed its very own Executive Vice President of Legal and Policy (and already a Cruise board member), Craig Glidden, as Chief Administrative Officer of the autonomous vehicle firm last week. Cruise's legal, communications and finance teams now report to Glidden. The company misled reporters about the facts, and maybe state regulators too. Vogt’s fall is also sad because it is founder-led companies which are often the real movers and shakers in the world. It will not have somebody at the helm who can make things happen in the company not simply because they have authority from the board of directors, but because they are the person who brought the company to where it is. That’s amazingly important, especially in a startup or a company trying to do what has never been done before.
The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on October 16 opened an investigation into Cruise vehicles after receiving reports of two pedestrian injuries, including the October 2 incident. The Cruise cars "may not have exercised appropriate caution around pedestrians in the roadway," the agency said. Another Cruise robotaxi hit a fire truck in San Francisco in August. The founder of General Motors-owned Cruise has stepped down less than a month after the driverless car company paused operations after an accident and the loss of permission to operate in California.
Emergency crews advised that the vehicle should not move off of her, and instead jacked the vehicle up to extract her and take her to hospital, where she remains. There have been minimal updates on her condition, though some suggestions are that she is improving slowly. Initially, that means taking more of a direct hand in Cruise’s operation.
It also expanded service in San Francisco from evening only to all day. Cruise pulled all of its driverless cars off the road after its license to operate them was suspended in California. And it is awaiting a report from an outside law firm’s investigation into how it responded to a crash last month in which a Cruise car dragged a woman 20 feet. Then came Oct. 2, when a Cruise robotaxi in Downtown San Francisco dragged a woman who was already struck by a human driver in a hit-and-run. The California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended Cruise's robotaxi permits and accused the company of hiding complete footage of the incident from regulators.
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