Reeling from a month in which the California DMV yanked Cruise’s permits for its self-driving robotaxis and the company paused all operations, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt held an all hands meeting Monday to explain how the company was planning to address concerns that its autonomous vehicles are not yet safe enough to operate. One of the very first announcements: pausing production of a fully autonomous van called the Origin, which Cruise parent company GM was planning to ramp up in the imminent future.
According to audio of the address obtained by Forbes, Vogt remarked on the company’s recent decision to halt driverless operations across its entire autonomous vehicle fleet, telling staff that “because a lot of this is in flux, we did make the decision with GM to pause production of the Origin.”
The Origin pause is a major setback for Cruise, which has been under fire from regulators after they learned one of its cars had hit and dragged a woman who had been struck by another car, as first reported by Forbes. In addition, Cruise’s software had “problems recognizing children,” putting them at risk, according to a Monday story from The Intercept. The Origin is entirely autonomous and has no manual steering controls or pedals.
The company has been hyping its Origin vehicle for years: in January 2022, Vogt told Forbes that the Origin was set to hit U.S. streets in 2023, and act as an autonomous delivery vehicle when robotaxi demand was low. In September, Vogt told an investor conference that the company was “days away” from mass production. And as recently as October 24, GM CEO Mary Barra told investors that the car would be on the streets of Tokyo in 2027.
“As Cruise continues to push the boundaries of what AV technology can deliver society, safety is always at the forefront,” she said during the earnings call. “And this is something they are continuously improving.”
Vogt told staff during the meeting that the company has produced hundreds of Origin vehicles already, and that is “more than enough for the near-term when we are ready to ramp things back up.”
“During this pause we’re going to use our time wisely,” he added, noting that Cruise was in active discussion with partners and regulators.
“And so if we want to rebuild trust with these groups, we have got to make sure that we are having those discussions and they hear things from us first and not from the press,” he explained. “So, candidly because we’ve had some leaks about information coming out of this meeting we have got to be careful what we share from this meeting, or these efforts to rebuild trust could backfire.”
Cruise and General Motors did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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