General Motors is slowing the expansion of its Cruise automated driving division and significantly cutting spending at the unit after suspending operations in response to growing safety concerns about its driverless cars.
The company had been planning to roll out a ride service in San Francisco and three other cities and begin testing Cruise vehicles on the streets of several other markets. It now plans to focus on only one city as it works to improve the operation of its fleet of driverless vehicles it has been testing.
“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,” G.M.’s chief executive, Mary T. Barra, said Wednesday at an investor conference. “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.”
Last month, California regulators suspended Cruise’s license to operate in the state after a Cruise self-driving vehicle in San Francisco ran over a pedestrian who had been hit by another car and dragged her for 20 feet.
The company responded by pulling all its driverless vehicles off the roads, citing a need to regain public trust.
G.M.’s chief financial officer, Paul Jacobson, said spending at Cruise would fall by “hundreds of millions of dollars” in 2024, and would probably fall further as the company reviewed the division’s operations.