New Leadership for GM’s Cruise with Marc Whitten on the Helm Amidst Challenges

General Motors has appointed Marc Whitten, a seasoned technology executive with a background in the video game industry, to lead its beleaguered robotaxi service, Cruise. This move comes as the service attempts to recover from a severe collision that led to the suspension of its California license and the removal of all its robotaxis from the state’s roads.

Whitten, a key engineer behind the Xbox video game console and a former executive at Amazon and Sonos, steps into the role of Cruise’s chief executive nearly nine months after a robotaxi incident in San Francisco. In early October 2023, a Cruise robotaxi dragged a jaywalking pedestrian, who had just been hit by a human-driven vehicle, across a dark street before coming to a halt.

The incident led California regulators to suspend Cruise’s operations in San Francisco, where the service had previously received approval to charge for rides despite local officials’ concerns about the technology’s flaws. General Motors revealed earlier this year that the U.S. Department of Justice had initiated an investigation into Cruise’s handling of the collision. Additionally, California regulators fined Cruise $112,000 for its response to the incident.

Whitten expressed his belief that Cruise can still enhance transportation safety beyond what is possible with human drivers. He called it “an opportunity of a lifetime to be part of this transformation” and praised the team at Cruise for developing world-class technology.

General Motors had initially projected that Cruise would generate $1 billion in annual revenue by 2025 but has since reduced its investment in the robotaxi service. This retrenchment resulted in the layoff of 900 workers following the resignation of Cruise co-founder and former CEO Kyle Vogt, who stepped down after the collision that injured the pedestrian.

On the same day Whitten’s appointment was announced, rival robotaxi service Waymo revealed that its driverless vehicles are now available to all riders in San Francisco, expanding from a waitlist of 300,000 people. This marks Waymo’s second major city of operations, alongside Phoenix, Arizona, where its robotaxis have been offering rides since 2020. Although Waymo’s fleet has not experienced incidents similar to Cruise’s, the Alphabet subsidiary recently issued a voluntary recall to update software across its fleet after one of its robotaxis collided with a telephone pole in Phoenix.

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