Cruise

Cruise LLC was an American self-driving car company headquartered in San Francisco, founded in October 2013 by Kyle Vogt and Dan Kan. It initially developed the RP-1, a roughly $10,000 direct-to-consumer retrofit kit that added an autonomous on-demand highway feature to 2012-or-later Audi A4 and S4 vehicles. In January 2014 the company abandoned the RP-1 in favor of building a fully autonomous vehicle based on the Nissan Leaf, and by 2015 had shifted entirely to writing software for fully self-driving vehicles, concluding that city driving was the harder and more valuable problem. Cruise went through the Y Combinator accelerator (Winter 2014 batch) and received a California DMV permit to test self-driving technology in June 2015.

After General Motors acquired the company in March 2016, Cruise operated as a largely independent subsidiary responsible for both technology and commercialization, developing autonomous hardware and software on modified Chevrolet Bolts and later designing the purpose-built Cruise Origin robotaxi. Products included the Cruise AV and Cruise Origin; the company also developed its own chips for self-driving applications. Cruise obtained California's first Driverless Deployment Permit in June 2022, allowing it to charge for driverless rides, and expanded testing and service beyond San Francisco to Phoenix, Austin, Dallas and Houston. The company's stated philosophy emphasized shared rather than individual vehicle ownership to reduce emissions, collisions and urban congestion.

Operations were suspended in October 2023 after a robotaxi ran over and dragged a pedestrian who had been thrown into its path by a human driver; California regulators suspended Cruise's permits, the fleet was grounded nationwide, Kyle Vogt resigned as CEO in November 2023, and about 24% of staff were laid off. Vehicles returned to public roads for testing in May 2024, but in December 2024 GM announced it would stop funding robotaxi development and fold Cruise into its internal technical teams focused on Super Cruise driver assistance and personal autonomous vehicles. GM completed its buyout of minority shareholders in early February 2025, and Cruise cut nearly 50% of its workforce, including CEO Marc Whitten and several other executives.

Founding story

Founded in October 2013 in San Francisco by Kyle Vogt and Dan Kan. Vogt, who studied computer science and electrical engineering at MIT, had previously co-founded Justin.tv, Twitch (acquired by Amazon) and Socialcam (acquired by Autodesk); Kan previously built Exec. The company joined Y Combinator's Winter 2014 batch and first pursued consumer retrofit kits before moving to full autonomy.

Business model

Cruise operated as a majority-owned (later wholly-owned) subsidiary of General Motors, developing autonomous driving hardware and software and running a commercial driverless ride-hailing (robotaxi) fleet. Following GM's December 2024 decision, the business model shifted away from ride-hailing toward supplying autonomous vehicle technology for GM personal vehicles and driver assistance systems.

Fare-based revenue from paid driverless ride-hailing after receiving California's first Driverless Deployment Permit in June 2022. The Verge reported Cruise lost $561 million in Q1 2023 with most of its roughly $30 million in revenue coming from interest and other non-operating income; the company had targeted $1 billion in revenue by 2025 and $50 billion by 2030.

Traction

Reached a $30 billion valuation and more than $7 billion in investment, with 250,000 fully driverless rides delivered according to Y Combinator's founder profile. As of September 2022 the company operated about 100 robotaxis in San Francisco with plans for 5,000. Headcount grew from roughly 40 at acquisition in 2016 to over 100 later that year, close to 200 by June 2017, about 3,800 in 2023, roughly 2,100 by January 2024 and nearly 2,300 as of December 2024.

Latest developments

GM announced on 10 December 2024 that it would stop funding Cruise robotaxi development, citing competition, capital allocation priorities and the time and resources needed to scale, and would merge Cruise with GM technical teams working on Super Cruise and personal autonomous vehicles, targeting more than $1 billion in annual savings. GM, which owned about 90% of Cruise, secured agreements to raise its stake above 97% and completed the acquisition of GM Cruise Holdings LLC in early February 2025 following board approval. On 4 February 2025 Cruise laid off nearly 50% of its workforce; CEO Marc Whitten, CHRO Nilka Thomas, Chief Safety Officer Steve Kenner and public policy head Rob Grant departed, while chief technologist Mo Elshenawy stayed through the end of April to assist the transition. Laid-off staff remained on payroll through 5 April 2025 with severance and benefits.