GM to Save $1B Annually by Pulling Plug on Self-Driving TaxisGM to Save $1B Annually by Pulling Plug on Self-Driving Taxis

General Motors’ decision to pull the plug on funding for Cruise’s self-driving taxis is likely to save the automaker $1 billion a year.

That’s according to CEO Mary Barra, who provided an update on the company’s finances during its latest earnings call.

GM opted to stop bankrolling Cruise’s robotaxi ambitions in December, after a tumultuous 15-month spell for the subsidiary. The automotive giant had spent an estimated $10 billion on Cruise since acquiring it in 2016.

But following a brutal 2024, which saw Cruise pick up a slew of negative headlines and large fines for its botched response to an incident in San Francisco in October 2023 which left a pedestrian badly injured, GM decided it’d had enough.

On the call, Barra explained what the effect of stopping the robotaxi funding would be. She said: “We have a proposed restructuring plan that will refocus our autonomous driving strategy on personal vehicles. 

“We expect to see a run rate savings of about $1 billion on an annualized basis by ending robotaxi development and we look forward to acquiring the small number of Cruise shares we don’t own and finalizing the restructuring plan later this quarter.”

It would appear that Cruise’s role moving forward will be to supply expertise to GM’s own autonomous ambitions, with some employees retained and some let go. It is understood the process of deciding who stays is ongoing and chief financial officer Paul Jacobson stated that the company assumed that Cruise employees would “be fully integrated into GM by mid-year.”

Related:GM Stops Funding Cruise Self-Driving Taxis

Despite GM’s rethink on robotaxis, Barra is adamant that full autonomy is still achievable for passenger cars and when questioned on whether the firm would need to buy tech in or could develop its own, she said: “There is so much happening from an artificial intelligence perspective of how we move forward. We…have built the capability inside General Motors. Obviously, our plan that we’re working to execute with Cruise would strengthen that.

“There may be strategic partners that we also work with on aspects of this. And so, we want to be leaders in Level 4 autonomy and we think we’re going to continue to evaluate the landscape to do that as capital efficiently as possible.”

For the time being, though, the focus is on pushing its Super Cruise “hands off” assistance tech with Barra saying 2025 would be a year of “rapid growth” during which the number of customers using the tech could double. Continual improvements since launch, such as adding thousands of miles of new roads to its network and introducing features like hands-free towing, have been geared towards driving subscriptions and Barra predicted: “Within five years, we expect to approach about $2 billion in total annual revenue from Super Cruise.”

Related:Cruise Under DOJ Investigation Following Published Report on Self-Driving Taxi Accident

She also pledged the tech would become standard across the entirety of Cadillac’s EV range.

Despite the $1 billion run rate saving on Cruise relative to the $1.7 billion spent on it in 2024, GM still reported a $2.4 billion loss for the final quarter of the year, with the firm taking a $500 million charge for restructuring. The picture was healthier over the whole year, though, with GM reporting adjusted pre-tax profits of $14.9 billion.