General Motors pulls plug on electric robotaxis

Remember "What's good for General Motors is good for America!"? How untrue that has always been. And the thing that burns my ring is that GM never admits that they've made a mistake, no matter how horribly stupid it may have been.

For example, the Monster That Ate Flint recently announced that it will stop funding the development of the Cruise self-driving taxi. The company says it will now "refocus autonomous driving development on personal vehicles." See our previous post in which George Carlin discusses language people use to make themselves sound important... or to obscure inconvenient truths.

GM attributed the change of strategy to "the considerable time and resources that would be needed to scale the business." Nothing to do with people's aversion to electric vehicles, of course. The manufacturer's chief executive, Mary Barra, had previously predicted that the Cruise business could generate $50 billion in annual revenue by 2030. 

They earlier pulled all of their American Cruise vehicles from testing after California halted its driverless testing permit. In October 2023, one such vehicle hit a pedestrian and dragged her for more than 20 feet, leaving her seriously injured. Cruise admitted to submitting a false report on the accident to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in which they somehow omitted to include a description of the pedestrian being dragged. 

Cruise co-founder Kyle Vogt left the company a few weeks later. Following GM's announcement, Mr Vogt posted on "X", "In case it was unclear before, it is clear now: GM are a bunch of dummies." 

General Motors is not without form on this sort of thing. In fact they've been promoting electric vehicles since 1912, when they tried to sell the public on this one.

Hmmm. An electric taxicab, eh. The rear axle was turned by a chain, similar to a large bicycle chain. What a novel idea it was... back then. 112 years later? Not so much.