Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Let the bullet fly a little longer.

Author | Truman Wang Lei

Go back to pre-liberation overnight.

GM's self-driving subsidiary, Cruise, suffered a black swan incident when production of its self-driving car, the Cruise Origin, was suddenly suspended.

Not long ago, Cruise's self-driving business in the United States was also suspended by the California government, and the company was forced to suspend all self-driving operations.

You know, in August this year, Cruise and Waymo were just approved to operate Robotaxi 24 / 7 commercial in San Francisco.

In just over two months, the attitude has taken a U-turn.

The reason given by the authorities is still the same old problem-vehicles are not safe to the public.

01, self-driving car suddenly stopped production of Cruise's driverless car Origin, jointly developed by GM, Cruise and Honda, specially built for self-driving car-hailing service and delivery.

Kyle Vogt, its CEO, said GM and GM decided to suspend production of the Origin because "a lot of things are constantly changing."

The Origin is a car designed by Cruise for self-driving. It has no pedals or steering wheel and can carry people as well as goods.

It is also seen as an important part of self-driving by Cruise, which submitted an application to US regulators in February last year to release 2500 Origin self-driving cars a year.

Originally, the US Road Traffic Safety Board (NHTSA) would have made a decision on the application of Cruise this year, but the launch of Origin was shelved indefinitely because of frequent safety accidents.

Of course, officials are also trying to minimize the impact of the shutdown. It says Cruise has produced hundreds of Origin cars, which are enough to use in a short period of time.

The immediate trigger for the suspension of Cruise Origin production was a traffic accident involving a Cruise self-driving taxi in San Francisco last month.

At that time, a passer-by was knocked down by a human-driven car in front of a Cruise self-driving taxi, but the Robotaxi ran over the pedestrian directly because he could not dodge.

Fortunately, Robotaxi later identified it, stopped immediately, and turned on the danger warning light, and then the trapped people were sent to hospital for treatment.

The California Motor vehicle Administration (DMV) immediately suspended the operating license of the Cruise self-driving taxi after it was the most serious accident caused by the Crusie self-driving taxi.

In addition to the previous troubles, Cruise decided to re-evaluate its self-driving methods, including suspending production plans for self-driving cars, for safety reasons.

Cruise said it was a joint decision with GM, but did not say when production would resume or when Robotaxi would resume operations, saying only that it would actively cooperate with regulators in their investigation and cooperation.

Cruise reported last week that it had hired a third-party law firm and a technical consultant to conduct an internal review.

Vogt, chief executive of Cruise, said: "We will make full use of our time during the suspension."

02. Technical and financial difficulties the suspension of production of Cruise Origin self-driving cars is not quite the same as Curise's Robo taxi business.

Cruise was founded in San Francisco in 2013 and was acquired by GM for $1 billion in 2016. two years later, GM began to accept outside investment, including strategic investors such as Softbank Corp., Microsoft and Honda. GM took a 2/3 stake, while Honda and Softbank Corp. Vision Fund took the rest.

It is important to note that in accepting Honda's investment, GM promised the Japanese giant to work together to build a "special-purpose" self-driving car, rather than a self-driving car converted from that ordinary model.

The "special purpose" Honda wants is also self-driving taxis, and it is only aimed at the Japanese market in the early stage.

Based on this, Cruise began to build the Origin project.

Cruise Origin looks like a logistics shuttle, but has completely wiped out the steering wheel and throttle brake pedals, with no obvious front or rear or hood or rearview mirror.

With huge cabin space, two rows of opposite seats and two large screens, there is nothing else, leaving no possibility of secondary control.

Honda officials say the car can be as private as a private car, can hold up to six people, can control mobile time, and can work on the move or have fun with his family.

Interestingly, a few days before GM announced the temporary suspension of Cruise Origin production, Honda generously brought the Cruise Origin to the Tokyo Motor Show in Japan.

According to Honda's plan, a self-driving taxi service based on this model will be launched in Japan in early 2026 and then expanded to other regions.

According to its company CTO Kyle Vogt, Cruise has been building a prototype of the car since it was acquired by General Motors in 2016 and joined the development of Cruise Origin after Honda injected capital in 2018.

Kyle has said that it usually takes at least four years and about $1 billion to build a brand new mass production car in the industry. GM, Honda and Cruise work together to reduce the development cycle and development costs of Cruise Origin. It was developed in three years by a tripartite Cruise team of more than 1500 people.

In the process of developing the Cruise Origin, the car companies took on what they were good at. GM was responsible for the design of the frame and motor, while Honda focused on interior decoration and interior space mining. As for Cruise, focus on injecting sensing and computing technology and self-driving experience into the vehicle.

So far, however, Cruise Origin has yet to get the necessary regulatory approval and permission to launch Origin testing.

For Cruise, many technologies are still in the "laboratory" stage, such as the lower-level driving assistance system, Super Cruise, which is still not widely available in GM models.

Although Cruise keeps saying that the suspension has nothing to do with any new road accidents, it is undeniable that a series of accidents at Cruise have raised questions about the safety of Cruise's autopilot technology to the public and regulators.

Coupled with GM's poor third-quarter results, GM lost about $1.9 billion on Cruise in the first three quarters of this year, of which $732 million was lost in the third quarter alone.

Since its inception, the company has earned only $30 million in revenue for GM, mostly from interest and other non-operating sources.

Since 2018, Cruise has burned more than $5 billion by launching its Robotaxi (self-driving taxi) service in San Francisco in the second half of last year.

The suspension of Cruise Origin, which is still in its infancy, shows that Cruise faces a lot of problems both technically and financially.

03. Let the bullet fly for a while. Although it has encountered the biggest crisis since its establishment, Cruise is still in a stable state of mind.

Cruise himself knows that the most important thing to do now is to regain public trust in self-driving.

During this period of suspension, there is time to fully examine their work at Cruise, such as self-testing of workflows, autopilot systems and methods.

At the same time, the suspension is not a stop, but requires the Cruise to cooperate with the investigation and come up with specific improvement measures.

It is reported that the California Motor vehicle Administration (DMV) has provided Cruise with a list of tasks that must be completed before applying to resume operations.

This means that as long as Cruise applies for permission to resume operation if the conditions are met, it will be possible to resume operation after evaluation.

So it's up to Cruise to cooperate or not. after all, Cruise has always been a thorn in the eyes of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Department. In the accident, the California Motor vehicle Administration claimed that Cruise had concealed the key footage, but Cruise immediately retorted, saying they had "shown the full video to DMV many times."

The pull between Cruise and the local government also makes the future of Robotaxi face more and more uncertainty.

In fact, the suspension of Crusie this time is not a bad thing for the entire self-driving industry.

Moreover, the Waymo, which also tests unmanned taxis in San Francisco, was not affected, only the Cruise test was stopped. And it's important to note that the California DMV uses the word "Suspend" Cruise's unmanned license plate, not "Revoke" altogether.

There will be mistakes in everything, and there will be bug in the program, but bug can be big or small, and autopilot is not equal to zero accident, but to reduce the overall accident rate and loss at the level of social transportation operation as a whole, and improve economic operation efficiency and people's travel experience.

What self-driving companies need to do is to have no upper limit to improve the reliability of self-driving.

Fully autopilot landing is destined to be a process of constantly solving the long tail problem, which will not be achieved overnight. It is good to solve the problem after finding the problem, and it can also provide case reference for other enterprises.

So what will Cruise do next? we have to let the bullet fly for a while.

This article is from the official account of Wechat: Chaodian Lab (ID:SuperEV-Lab), author: Truman Wang Lei

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