Vogt resigns as CEO of Cruise following safety questions, recalls of self-driving vehicles

Table Of Content

• How will driverless cars ‘talk’ to pedestrians? Waymo has a few ideas
• After robotaxi dragged pedestrian 20 feet, Cruise founder and CEO resigns
• Microsoft ‘senior leadership’ emails accessed by Russian SolarWinds hackers
• Armed with traffic cones, protesters are immobilizing driverless cars
• Vogt resigns as CEO of Cruise following safety concerns over self-driving vehicles
• Cruise co-founder and CEO Kyle Vogt resigns

First responders in San Francisco said the cars didn’t always react appropriately to the presence of police and fire vehicles. In August, a fire truck responding to an emergency with sirens on collided with a Cruise vehicle in an intersection after the vehicle failed to pull over. In mid-October, Cruise said it had improved its technology’s responses to emergency vehicles. On October 24, the California DMV yanked Cruise’s operating permit, and two days later the company pulled all of its remaining AVs from its operational cities in Arizona and Texas. Previously, Cruise had targeted a rollout of its fleet to a total of 10 cities, including Nashville and San Diego by the end of 2023.

How will driverless cars ‘talk’ to pedestrians? Waymo has a few ideas

The company says it will also work on improved engagement with first responders to facilitate trainings in each precinct it plans to operate in. "Cruise and GM, we're really totally aligned now on accelerating the joint autonomous vehicle strategy that we outlined at our recent investor day," GM President Mark Reuss told CNBC a day after Ammann left the company. Vogt replaces Dan Ammann, a former president of GM, who was unexpectedly ousted from Cruise in December. Ammann was reportedly let go from Cruise by GM CEO and Chair Mary Barra, who also chairs Cruise's board, over disagreements in strategy, including when to take the company public. "As for what's next for me, I plan to spend time with my family and explore some new ideas. Thanks for the great ride!" Vogt wrote.

After robotaxi dragged pedestrian 20 feet, Cruise founder and CEO resigns

Cruise has hired a law firm to investigate how it responded to regulators, as its cars sit idle and questions grow about its C.E.O.’s expansion plans. Most automakers have already dialed back their autonomous ambitions. Last year, Ford and Volkswagen pulled their funding from Argo AI, forcing the company to cease operations. Toyota’s vision for a futuristic city teeming with self-driving cars has been significantly delayed. In 2022, AV investments went down nearly 60 percent year over year as startups struggled through layoffs or outright closures.

Microsoft ‘senior leadership’ emails accessed by Russian SolarWinds hackers

His resignation follows an accident where a pedestrian who was struck by another vehicle became trapped underneath a Cruise robotaxi, which dragged her as it attempted to pull over. Rescuers needed to use the jaws of life to free her after Cruise disabled the vehicle. The Cruise Board understands and respects his decision to resign as CEO, and we wish him well in his next chapter.

Armed with traffic cones, protesters are immobilizing driverless cars

The company’s main operations were historically based in San Francisco, but Cruise lost its permits to operate there following the accident. Cruise began expanding its paid service area in the Phoenix area in August 2023. Technological issues aside, what really put Cruise in hot water late last year was its response to the incident.

Before the pandemic, about 10% of people that had never cruised said they "never" would. According to the survey, this number rose to 17% in June 2021, but fell to 14% by August. Pre-pandemic, 62% of people who had never cruised indicated they wanted to try it. Disney dominates the family cruise category, as it has every year since U.S.

Robotaxi companies have a serious trust issue

Eventually, an Uber self-driving car killed a woman crossing the street in Arizona, which resulted in the company shuttering the whole division. “We continue to believe strongly in Cruise’s mission and the potential of its transformative technology as we look to make transportation safer, cleaner and more accessible,” Barra stated in an email to employees, according to TechCrunch. Rather than sit back and let driverless cars come to them eventually, Barra insisted on GM staying in the driver’s seat. And now it has to deal with the fallout when that company’s “move fast and break things” culture has resulted in a crisis. Vogt will retain his prior positions of chief technology officer and president of the company.

Vogt resigns as CEO of Cruise following safety concerns over self-driving vehicles

This isn’t the first time Cruise has gone through a leadership shuffle. Barra ousted Dan Ammann as Cruise CEO in December 2021, replacing him with Vogt, who at the time was chief technology officer. Ammann, who had once competed with Barra for the top spot at GM, wanted to keep the focus on robotaxis, while Barra and the GM board wanted to go big, including putting Cruise’s technology in luxury Cadillac vehicles. The announcement at CES certainly seemed to confirm that version of events. Cruise has insisted it showed video of the entire incident—including the dragging—to state and federal regulators.

Cruise co-founder and CEO Kyle Vogt resigns

Kyle Vogt, CEO of Robotaxi Developer Cruise, Resigns as Questions Linger Over Grisly Crash - WIRED

Kyle Vogt, CEO of Robotaxi Developer Cruise, Resigns as Questions Linger Over Grisly Crash.

Posted: Mon, 20 Nov 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]

“The status quo on our roads sucks, but together we’ve proven there is something far better around the corner,” Vogt wrote in a message to Cruise workers posted on X. On Saturday, one day before resigning, Vogt reportedly apologized to staff in an email. Complete digital access plus the FT newspaper delivered Monday-Saturday. Complete digital access to quality FT journalism with expert analysis from industry leaders.

Cruise pulled all of its driverless cars off the road after its license to operate them was suspended in California. And it is awaiting a report from an outside law firm’s investigation into how it responded to a crash last month in which a Cruise car dragged a woman 20 feet. Vogt’s resignation comes approximately six weeks after a critical October 2 accident in the company’s hometown of San Francisco that left a woman in critical condition for weeks.

Two days later, Cruise went further and voluntarily suspended all of its driverless operations around the country, taking 400 or so driverless cars off the road. Since then, Cruise’s board has hired the law firm Quinn Emanuel to investigate the company’s response to the incident, including its interactions with regulators, law enforcement and the media. A video, which TechCrunch viewed a day after the incident, showed the robotaxi braking aggressively and coming to a stop over the woman. The DMV’s order of suspension stated that Cruise withheld about seven seconds of video footage, which showed the robotaxi then attempting to pull over and subsequently dragging the woman 20 feet. The automaker’s driverless car subsidiary, Cruise, announced last night the resignation of Kyle Vogt as CEO. The decision came over a month after an incident in which a hit-and-run victim became pinned under a Cruise vehicle and then was dragged 20 feet to the side of the road.

Employee discontent was further inflamed last week when Cruise suspended its employee share-selling program for the fourth quarter. Sources who spoke to TechCrunch on the condition of anonymity said they could lose upwards of tens of thousands of dollars as a result of this decision. Regardless of what originally brought you to work on AVs, remember why this work matters.