About two months ago, GM rolled up its Cruise robotaxi service, and today the automaker has announced it’s letting about half of Cruise employees go. While the decision is hardly surprising, it’s a sad one for all those workers and their families.

GM has forced out two senior Corvette managers recently.

After GM brought the Cruise team into its greater operations, it was announced by the automaker Cruise employees would be working to bolster autonomous drive technologies for consumer vehicles. They were to work alongside GM employees.

However, CNBC says an email was sent out this morning to all Cruise employees by GEO Craig Glidden, announcing the workforce reduction. He said “staffing and resource needs have dramatically changed” since Cruise began integrating with GM.

Most of the retained Cruise employees have engineering roles, which really isn’t surprising. Likely those being let go had jobs which are already being covered inside GM.

What’s interesting about GM’s about face on Cruise is that with the Trump administration in power, likely there will be more opportunities for robotaxi services to expand across the nation. But that has probably been counterbalanced by the company getting involved in some rather controversial situations recently, including racking up a $500,000 criminal fine from the federal government after submitting a false crash report to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Cruise robotaxis have also been blamed in the past for causing traffic jams in multiple cities as well as close calls with pedestrians and other vehicles.

GM acquired cruise, which up until two months ago operated self-driving taxis in different cities, back in 2016. At the time autonomous drive technology was all the rage, with companies promising that in anywhere from a couple to four years fully autonomous cars would be available to consumers.

Image via Cruise

By Steven Symes

Steven Symes is an accomplished automotive journalist with a passion for all things related to cars. His extensive knowledge and love for the automotive world shine through in his writing, which covers a diverse range of topics.

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