In a new email sent to Cruise employees, the company’s new president and CTO struck a new conciliatory tone, suggesting the company plans to dial strategically back an aggressive robotaxi roll out that inspired California regulators to ultimately shut the company’s vehicles down.
“We remain focused on commercializing a fully driverless L4 service, relaunching ridehail in one city to start,” Mo Elshenawy wrote in a Dec. 1 message, using the industry term for fully-automated driving. “Our priority from day one will be to launch with communities, not at them.”
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He noted that Cruise will attempt a critical comeback, but acknowledged that the company would try a humbler approach. “Our current situation continues to be challenging for everyone,” he conceded.
Cruise spokesperson Erik Moser acknowledged that the message that Forbes obtained was authentic, but largely declined to comment on its contents.
“GM remains committed to supporting the independent safety reviews and Cruise as they refocus on trust, accountability and transparency,” wrote Faryl Ury, a GM spokesperson, in an emailed statement.
The company has been facing an ongoing existential crisis since an October incident in San Francisco, where a Cruise car dragged a woman 20 feet after she’d already been hit by a car. Since then, California regulators revoked its permits, and the company shut down its remaining fleet voluntarily. Last week, a California administrative law judge ruled that Cruise “misled” state officials and ordered company representatives to formally respond.
The new email did not elaborate as to exactly how, when, or where the relaunch will happen, but rosily concluded that “this path sets us up to deliver the best self-driving technology possible, which will also unlock future commercial opportunities for our technology.”
In recent years, General Motors has spent several billion dollars on Cruise, but the subsidiary has only made a very tiny fraction of that money back in revenue.
“We have seen things that look to us like real red flags.”
Elshenawy’s Friday message acknowledged that there are still a lot of unknowns.
“The bar has been raised for driverless operations, and it needs to encompass the entire experience and not only aggregate safety performance,” he continued.
“A cross-functional working group of subject matter experts is working hard to define what is needed to relaunch. including what work we should continue or stop. This will be informed by the independent reviews we have underway and we’ll be sharing more soon on this.”
The president’s more measured approach contrasts with its now-departed CEO and cofounder, Kyle Vogt, who just months ago had laid out an ambitious plan to “continue 10X growth every year for the foreseeable future.”
Previously, city officials in Cruise’s hometown, San Francisco, had complained that the company had operated with arrogance – seemingly expecting municipal agencies to bend to its will.
“We have seen things that look to us like real red flags,” Julia Friedlander, the senior manager for automated driving policy at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, told Forbes during an in-person interview on Monday. “It’s definitely not finished technology.”
Earlier this year, Friedlander outlined numerous concerns about how autonomous vehicles generally interact with not only the public, but also with buses, trains, and first responders.
“‘Psychological safety’ is the principle that employees can freely share safety concerns without fearing negative consequences.”
San Francisco Fire Department officials have expressed similar sentiments on prior occasions.
“What we have gotten from them is: ‘Here is how you should interact with our vehicles.’ So just sort of that hubris,” SFFD Chief Jeanine Nicholson previously told Forbes. “Let’s turn that around a second. Let’s talk about how you should interact with our vehicles.”
Elshenawy also acknowledged that the company would be hit with layoffs, as Vogt had previously announced internally, but did not provide any further details.
“We have work to do related to our culture,” he continued. “We need to rebuild and elevate our focus on psychological safety and employee engagement in particular. Overall we will be sharpening our focus which will help us improve key areas like planning, decision making and work-life balance.”
Asked to explain the term, “psychological safety,” Moser, the Cruise spokesperson, said “‘psychological safety’ is the principle that employees can freely share safety concerns without fearing negative consequences.”