October 26, 2018—Since May, General Motors Co. and its Cruise self-driving car unit have landed $5 billion in investment commitments from Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp. and Honda Motor Co. Ltd. to develop a robot taxi service that could safely navigate the city streets of San Francisco by the end of next year, reported Insurance Journal.
Those expectations are now hitting speed bumps, though, according to Insurance Journal interviews with eight current and former GM and Cruise employees and executives, along with nine autonomous vehicle technology experts familiar with Cruise.
Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt told Reuters last month the service will offer passengers “a primary form of transportation” most anywhere they want to go, and compete with Uber and Lyft.
In addition, operating self-driving cars in a taxi service would allow Cruise and GM to tailor the service to the limitations of the technology until software and sensors are ready to enable autonomous vehicles that can go anywhere, according to the report.
