--- title: "General Motors to Slash Spending on Robotaxis After Disastrous Year" description: "General Motors has lost billions of dollars on Cruise, which has received intense scrutiny from state and federal regulators this year." date: "2023-11-30" modified: "2023-11-30" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/general-motors-slash-spending-robotaxis" categories: - "Advanced Transport" tags: - "cruise" - "robotaxis" - "Self-driving cars" - "the digest" --- # General Motors to Slash Spending on Robotaxis After Disastrous Year ![General Motors has lost billions of dollars on Cruise, which has received intense scrutiny from state and federal regulators this year.]() *\Image: Andrej Sokolow / Picture Alliance via Getty / Futurism\* ## Tired Out After years of hemorrhaging billions of dollars, General Motors is finally cutting back its spending on its autonomous vehicle division Cruise, [*The New York Times* reports](), which may be yet another nail in the coffin for what was not long ago considered a leader in self-driving technology. The past several months have marked a swift and disastrous reversal for the division. It was only this summer that Cruise announced its plans to [expand its driverless robotaxi service to more cities](). Those plans are now being put on hold, however, in the face of an enormous amount of public scrutiny over the safety of the robotaxis, coinciding with pushback from both state and federal regulators. "We expect the pace of Cruise's expansion to be more deliberate when operations resume, resulting in substantially lower spending in 2024 than in 2023," said GM CEO Mary Barra at an investor conference on Wednesday, [as quoted by the *NYT*](). "We must rebuild trust with regulators at the local, state and federal levels, as well as with the first responders and the communities in which Cruise will operate," she added. ## Road to Retread Cruise's run-ins with the law began in late October, when the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began investigating it after receiving reports of its [robotaxis endangering pedestrians](), including an incident in which a woman was struck and pinned. Just days later, the California Department of Motor Vehicles [rescinded Cruise's permit to operate robotaxis]() in the state. Cruise, in crisis mode, then [paused fully driverless operations]() everywhere, including San Francisco, Miami, and Dallas. Since then, it's [pulled *all* its robotaxis]() off the road, even those with supervising "safety drivers." Layoffs [have also been announced]() at the company. The downturn is a massive embarrassment for GM, which has poured ludicrous amounts of funding into its effort to spearhead self-driving. In the third financial quarter alone, the automaker lost $700 million on the division, with a total $8 billion in losses since 2016, [according to *Reuters*](). Now, GM chief financial officer Paul Jacobson says that spending would fall by "hundreds of millions of dollars" in 2024, per the *NYT*, though the exact amount remains to be determined. ## Tarnished Reputation Still, Barra maintains that GM is optimistic about Cruise's future — even though it's about to slash the hell out of its budget. "What Cruise has accomplished in the eight years since we acquired the company is remarkable," Barra said, per the *NYT*. That may be true, but whatever it's accomplished is now being vastly overshadowed. Locals can attest to Cruise robotaxis being involved in plenty of embarrassing traffic hiccups, like [repeatedly]() [causing jams]() and even [getting stuck in wet concrete](). Some are a lot more serious, like [barging through an active firefighting scene](). A damning report revealed how Cruise even kept its robotaxis on the roads despite knowing [they struggled to recognize children](). For now, GM isn't dumping the division outright, but it's seeming a lot more unlikely that Cruise will still be around in the next few years — perhaps an omen for the increasingly controversial self-driving industry at large. **More on Cruise:** *[Government Unsure How Many Pedestrians Have Been Hit by Self-Driving Cars]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()