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We knew that this day was going to arrive: Cruise is dead – at least as a Robotaxi company. General Motors completed his acquisition of GM Cruise Holdings LLC; Cruise is now a subsidiary in exclusive GM property.
The result is a 50% reduction in staff – It’s about 1,000 people. The next step is to integrate the remaining employees into GM folds, where they will work to improve the advanced driver’s driver’s assistance system.
Among my many questions about this, it is so GM will successfully keep the remaining talent, which most engineers told me. And will this fresh talent result in an improved advanced driver assistance system, marked as a super cruise, and possibly personal autonomous vehicles?
I am not convinced that the acquisition of talents – which were inspired and faithful to the co -founder and CEO of Cruise, Kyle Vogt – is a good match. But hey, I was wrong before.
Over the years, I have spoken to many cruise engineers, and each time I started thinking: “Well, there is a real believer.” I did not meet each Cruise employee, but those that I gave in belief in the mission of autonomous vehicles and seemed delighted to work long hours to achieve it.
For all current and old cruisers, hold out. I would love to talk about the first days with you. Send me an email to kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com.
A little bird
Some other little birds came from us Cruise In recent days. A large part of the communication was focused on imminent layoffs, which I discussed above. But I thought it was an interesting nugget of sources that shared how they thought – at least for a while – Cruise could restart its Robotaxi operations.
An indicator was this treat from sources which told us that Cruise had been ready to implement a modernized sensor solution, called internally called Rhino, which would have resolved for the incident of October 2 by creating visibility and conscience additional under the car. The incident is referring to an event in 2023 when a pedestrian, which was initially affected by a car focused on the man, found himself trapped and then dragged by one of the company’s Robotaxis.
Do you have a tip for us? Send an email to Kirsten Korosec to kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.comSean O’kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.comor Rebecca Bellan at rebecca.bellan@techcrunch.com. Or discover These instructions To learn how to contact us via encrypted or securedrop messaging applications.
Offers!
Just a lot of offers this week!
Applied intuition Episys Science Inc. acquiredA company that has developed autonomy software for national security, including unixed air systems, surface war, maritime monitoring and command and control of battle management. The terms have not been disclosed. Applied intuition may be better known as a Autonomous vehicle software business; Lately, he pushed deeper into the defense.
GenlogsA startup that has developed freight intelligence software, lifted $ 14.6 million In a series, a financing tour led by Venrock and Hof Capital. Steel Atlas, Autotech Ventures, Venture 53, Titletowntech, Plug and Play Ventures and Heartland Ventures also participated in the round.
PrestoA startup that says it builds the EV load strip, lifted $ 15 million In a seed lap led by Union Square Ventures, the company declared exclusively to Techcrunch. The round also included investments by congruent ventures, Jetsstream and Powerhouse Ventures.
Notable readings and other songs
ADAS
We have covered Tesla gains in last week’s edition but wanted Hit this article by Sean O’kaneThis reminds us of all the promises that Elon Musk has made around its complete software and its recent admission that some of its vehicles will actually need a hardware upgrade.
Autonomous vehicles
THE California Department of Motor Vehicles published data that shows a 50% decrease in trial of autonomous vehicles. Yes, the end of the cruise is partially responsible. But there are other factors at stake. This is what is happening with others.
Waabi has established a partnership with Volvo Autoomous Solutions to develop jointly and Deploy autonomous trucks. Reminder: Volvo also has an agreement with Aurora.
Waymo is now appear on the Uber application in Austin. For the moment, this is not translated into a waymo that takes people. But it will soon be.
Electric vehicles, loads and batteries
THE Chicago Auto Show is underway, and while most – like the Subaru Forester Hybrid – are light hybrids or internal combustion motor vehicles, there were also electric vehicles. Stelllantis revealed the whole electric 2025 Jeep Wagoneer Smit Limited It starts at $ 66,995 and has an estimated fork at 294 miles.
Ford Generated this week announced this week and, Welp, his company EV lost about 5 billion dollars in 2024. But it was not the only thing that drew my attention. Instead, it was CEOs from CEO Jim Farley on prices.
Scout enginesThe Volkswagen spinout which plans to produce electric trucks and fully electric and range electric SUVs was pursued by a group of VW and Audi dealerships In Florida on its sales plan directly to consumers.
Breeding and concert economy
Lyft established a partnership with the AI Startup Anthropic has Build an AI assistant This manages the initial contribution for customer service requests for cyclists and drivers.
Espace et Avenir du Flight
It is An interesting feature On a startup called Fuelle circularityWho will make diamonds on his way to create e-fuel to feed jet planes.
This week’s wheels
This week, we will hear the journalist from Techcrunch Rebecca Bellan and her time to drive a 2024 Kia Niro. (Please note that the photo above is a 2025 model.)
I rented a Kia Niro 2024 during the weekend to drive a few hours north of New York.
It is a cute and zipped SUV, but I had trouble in two areas necessary for a road trip: the battery life in winter and the location of the volume button / button.
It only took an hour and a half of driving, about 70 miles, so that the battery goes from completely loaded to the empty half.
This kicked my anxiety, because I did not know where in the sticks of Connecticut, I could find a charger. I found one, at the end, a lonely evo charger in a Planet Fitness parking lot. “Marsha” was announced to load at 50 kW, but ended up drip my battery at a shocking rate of 17 kW. Let’s just say that I sat in this parking lot for a while.
The volume button or button was also visibly absent. This is my biggest bane with vehicles defined by software: the obsession of touch screens instead of the touch buttons that you can handle while you drive so that you don’t have to leave your eyes on the road. Neither me nor any of my passengers, could understand how to adjust the volume without using the button on the wheel.
I finally just on Google “Kia Niro Volume” and of course, I found a Reddit Post that I could have written. Apparently, press the “button” above the orange fan to change the air conditioning mode, then you can use the left temperature button to modify the volume. Amazing.
What is “Wheels this week”? It is a chance to discover the different transport products that we test, whether it is an electric or hybrid car, an electric bike or even driving in an autonomous vehicle.
