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Embattled self-driving car company Cruise appoints new CEO

Marc Whitten, a veteran video game executive, will lead General Motors’ troubled self-driving car unit as it tries to win back trust after a grisly crash.

SAN FRANCISCO — General Motors-owned Cruise announced a new CEO on Tuesday, as the embattled autonomous car company works to restart its driverless taxi service after grounding its entire fleet in the wake of a grisly accident last year.

Marc Whitten, previously an executive at video game development platform Unity and a founder of Microsoft’s Xbox service division, will take over at a precarious time for Cruise. The company halted its entire driverless fleet across the United States last year after one of its autonomous cars operating in San Francisco hit and dragged a jaywalking pedestrian who was flung into its path by a human driver. California regulators suspended Cruise’s permits to operate its driverless fleet in the state, throwing the company into a crisis that included mass layoffs and the resignation of Kyle Vogt as its CEO.

In a statement Tuesday, Whitten said that joining Cruise is “an opportunity of a lifetime” and predicted that the company would make rapid progress. “In a few years, transportation will be fundamentally safer and more accessible than it is today, creating much more value for individuals and communities around the world,” he said.

Whitten will oversee the return of Cruise’s driverless cars to public roads, which began last month in Phoenix with humans in the driver’s seat in case of problems. He must also try to restore the trust of regulators and the public in a company that was once seen as a leader in the self-driving car industry. After the Oct. 2 crash in San Francisco, which gravely injured a woman by dragging her about 20 feet underneath the vehicle, the California Department of Motor Vehicles said the company posed an “unreasonable risk” to public safety.

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As it works to resume driverless operation, Cruise appointed a chief safety officer and said it has been working closely with city and state officials.

In an interview with The Washington Post on Tuesday, Cruise President and Chief Technology Officer Mo Elshenawy said the company is working to resume fully driverless operations in one U.S. city, like those that once ferried paying riders around San Francisco, but said the company “hasn’t decided” which one yet. Cruise said this month that it is testing its cars with safety drivers behind the wheel in Houston and Dallas, in addition to Phoenix.

“We’re evolving,” Elshenawy said, “towards not only being better than an average driver, but better than a role model driver.”

GM's Cruise self-driving fleet set to return to the road in Phoenix

General Motors' self-driving car subsidiary Cruise is inching closer to restarting its driverless robo taxi business after halting all services and recalling its vehicles late last year.

The company said Monday it will begin supervised autonomous driving in Phoenix on Tuesday. The news comes after Cruise announced in April that it would reintroduce a small fleet of human-driven vehicles starting in Phoenix.

Cruise had stopped operations about six months ago after an incident in October in San Francisco where the company is headquartered. A vehicle hit a pedestrian, pushing her into an oncoming Cruise self-driving car, which then dragged her several feet, leaving the woman critically injured.

GM says it's made improvements

GM spokesman Pat Morrissey said the automaker believes Cruise is ready to relaunch because Cruise has been constantly updating its performance, using real road data and simulated scenarios. The company has made ongoing improvements in how the cars maneuver around pedestrians, emergency vehicles and construction areas, he said.

"Safety is the defining principle for everything we do and continues to guide our progress toward resuming driverless operations," Morrissey said. "From comprehensive vehicle management before our AVs depart the garage to continuous driver monitoring and roadworthiness of the vehicle, we deploy rigorous safety procedures, protocols and performance requirements to ensure supervised autonomous operations are safe for operation on public roads."

Morrissey also said having a new chief safety officer is an important step, a role filled by Steve Kenner, who has updated safety procedures, protocols and community relationships. Cruise is following recommendations from third-party experts and building a close partnership with the communities in which it plans to operate.

The company said Monday in a blog post that for the past several weeks  Cruise has been mapping and collecting road information  in Phoenix with human drivers at the wheel. The next step is to validate the autonomous vehicles' safety and performance. During this phase, the vehicles will drive autonomously with a human safety driver present to take control if needed. Cruise uses modified Chevrolet Bolt electric cars that have steering wheels and brakes.

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"Supervised autonomous driving is a critical validation phase prior to driverless deployment and builds on our extensive work in simulation, closed-course driving and more than 5 million driverless miles previously driven by our fleet to ensure safe performance on real-world roads and driving scenarios," Morrissey said in an emailed statement. "We’ll begin in a limited area of Phoenix and will gradually expand to Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Tempe, Mesa, Gilbert and Chandler measured against predetermined safety benchmarks."

Waymo is giving Cruise competition

A Cruise competitor, Waymo, which is Alphabet's self-driving startup, has been operating and expanding services in Phoenix for several years. It recently began offering driverless rides on freeways in that city.

As the  Detroit Free Press has reported , GM has invested about $8 billion in Cruise since 2016. Cruise leaders had at one point promised to deliver $1 billion in annual revenue by 2025, but the subsidiary has not made any money yet. Last month, GM CEO Mary Barra reiterated to Wall Street that the relaunch of Cruise safely, "while delivering strong margins and cash flows," is a top priority for GM this year. 

Settlement Offer: GM's Cruise offers a settlement to California regulators over pedestrian accident

GM CFO Paul Jacobson has said the company expects to spend $1.7 billion on Cruise operations this year, down slightly from GM’s spend on Cruise in previous years of around $2 billion.

The fallout from that Oct. 2 accident has resulted in regulators  suspending Cruise  from further operations in San Francisco. That was followed by Cruise opting to suspend  all its operations  nationwide. Cruise has since fired nine executives and cut  about 24% or 900 full-time employees  from its workforce. Cruise  CEO Kyle Vogt  and co-founder and Chief Product Officer Dan Kan resigned, and Barra said in November that  GM will be doing "substantially lower spending"  on Cruise in 2024 than it did in 2023.

GM leaders remain firm that the automaker still supports Cruise's mission.

Contact Jamie L. LaReau:  [email protected] . Follow her on Twitter  @ jlareauan . Read more on  General Motors  and sign up for our  autos newsletter .  Become a subscriber .

Cruise’s driverless autonomous cars start giving rides to paying passengers

The era of commercial autonomous robotaxi service is here — Cruise officially became the first company to offer fared rides to the general public in a major city as of late Wednesday. The milestone comes after Cruise received official approval from the California Public Utilities Commission in early June to operate driverless in a commercial capacity .

Initially, Cruise’s driverless autonomous offering will operate only between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., and only on designated streets in the city. But the limits are part of a plan by regulators and the company to prove out the safety and efficacy of its system before deploying it in more locations at additional times. The new operating window already extends its total active time by 1.5 hours as compared to the free driverless test pilot service it was offering between June of last year and the debut of this paid service.

UPDATE: As of last night, fared rides are now rolling out to our customers in SF. If you’re waiting to take your first driverless ride, we’re inviting more people into our AVs each week, so sit tight— it’ll be worth it! 😉 https://t.co/UpjuQ9K81W pic.twitter.com/CwkD1LftnV — cruise (@Cruise) June 23, 2022

It sounds like Cruise is still a ways off from making this offering available far and wide to San Franciscans eager to take a trip with a robot chauffeur, but this is still a major step toward a future where AVs crawl the streets in big cities picking up paying fares.

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Cruise is testing in Dallas, Houston, and Phoenix. We start with trained safety drivers behind the wheel human-driven vehicles without autonomous systems engaged with a plan to transition to supervised autonomous driving in the near future. Learn more about our progress here .

Driverless by design

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Why did Cruise pause operations?

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GM brings in new CEO to steer troubled Cruise robotaxi service while Waymo ramps up in San Francisco

FILE - Marc Whitten, Microsoft Corp.'s chief production officer of interactive entertainment, is pictured May 21, 2013, at an event in Redmond, Wash. On Tuesday, June 25, 2024, General Motors announced Whitten will take the helm of its troubled robotaxi service, Cruise, as it tries to recover from a gruesome collision that triggered the suspension of its California license. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)

FILE - An electric car driving for Cruise, General Motor’s troubled robotaxi service, is seen on Jan. 16, 2019, in Detroit. On Tuesday, June 25, 2024, General Motors announced that veteran technology executive Marc Whitten will take the helm of the company as it tries to recover from a gruesome collision that triggered the suspension of its California license. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)

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General Motors on Tuesday named a veteran technology executive with roots in the video game industry to steer its troubled robotaxi service Cruise as it tries to recover from a gruesome collision that triggered the suspension of its California license.

Marc Whitten, one of the key engineers behind the Xbox video game console, will take over as Cruise’s chief executive nearly nine months after one of the service’s robotaxis dragged a jaywalking pedestrian — who had just been struck by a vehicle driven by a human — across a darkened street in San Francisco before coming to a stop.

That early October 2023 incident prompted California regulators to slam the brakes on Cruise’s robotaxis in San Francisco. It had previously giving the driverless vehicles approval to charge for rides throughout the second densest city in the U.S., despite objections of local government officials who cited flaws in the autonomous technology.

General Motors, which had hoped Cruise would be generating $1 billion in annual revenue by 2025, has since scaled back its massive investments in the robotaxi service. The cutbacks resulted in 900 workers being laid off j ust weeks after Cruise co-founder and former CEO Kyle Vogt resigned from his job in the aftermath of crash that sent the pedestrian to the hospital.

The arrival of new leadership at Cruise came on the same day rival robotaxi service Waymo disclosed its driverless vehicles are ready to start picking up anyone in San Francisco who wants ride within the city. Waymo had been only accepting requests from riders selected from a waiting list that had grown to 300,000 people.

It’s the second major city where Waymo’s robotaxis are open to all comers, joining Phoenix, where the driverless vehicles have been giving rides for several years.

Although Waymo’s vehicles so far haven’t been involved in any collisions like the one that sidelined Cruise, the company recently issued a voluntary recall that required delivering a software update throughout its fleet after one of its robotaxis hit a telephone pole in Phoenix.

Whitten, who also has worked at Amazon and Sonos, will be taking over a robotaxi service facing far more daunting challenges. General Motors earlier this year disclosed that the U.S. Justice Department has opened an inquiry into Cruise’s handling of the October crash in San Francisco. California regulators also fined Cruise $112,000 for its response to that collision.

In a statement, Whitten said he believes Cruise can still make transportation safer than it has been with humans behind the wheel of cars.

“It is an opportunity of a lifetime to be part of this transformation,” Whitten said. ”The team at Cruise has built world-class technology, and I look forward to working with them to help bring this critical mission to life.”

GM's Cruise self-driving unit getting new CEO

General Motors’ autonomous driving unit will have a new CEO beginning next month.

The company announced Tuesday that Marc Whitten, a “founding engineer at Xbox and Xbox Live” and former Amazon executive involved in that company’s apps and entertainment services, will take over the leadership spot, effective July 16.

Whitten’s appointment fills the opening left when Kyle Vogt resigned as CEO in November in a shake-up over safety concerns after a pedestrian was dragged by a Cruise self-driving taxi, according to Reuters.

Whitten, in a news release, said the team at Cruise has built world-class technology.

"In a few years, transportation will be fundamentally safer and more accessible than it is today, creating much more value for individuals and communities around the world. It is an opportunity of a lifetime to be part of this transformation," Whitten said in the release.

Mary Barra, GM chair and CEO and chair of the Cruise Board of Directors, praised Whitten as a “proven technology and business leader with extensive experience in scaling products and building ecosystems around them.”

More: California to fine GM's unit Cruise for delaying report on San Francisco accident

Mo Elshenawy will stay on as president and chief technology officer; Craig Glidden, who is moving from his post as general counsel at GM, will serve as president and chief administrative officer. Both will report to Whitten.

In addition, Nick Mulholland, who led communications at Rivian, was named chief communications and marketing officer, the release said.

In other news, GM announced that Grant Dixton, who had been chief legal officer at Activision Blizzard, will join GM as executive vice president and chief legal and public policy officer on July 15, assuming the role held by Glidden.

Contact Eric D. Lawrence: [email protected]. Become a subscriber . Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters .

Reporter's note: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Grant Dixton's name.

Exclusive look at Cruise’s first driverless car without a steering wheel or pedals

The origin is the gm subsidiary’s first attempt to build an fully autonomous car from the ground up.

By Andrew J. Hawkins , transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation. His work has appeared in The New York Daily News and City & State.

Share this story

The not-a-car sits on the gleaming black stage surrounded by a halo of light. It’s orange and black and white, and roughly the same size as a crossover SUV, but somehow looks much larger from the outside. There is no obvious front to the vehicle, no hood, no driver or passenger side windows, no side-view mirrors. The symmetry of the exterior is oddly comforting. 

I am one of the first non-employees to see it, after being invited by self-driving company Cruise to come out to San Francisco for an early look. And what I see is a car. A weird-looking car, sure, but a car nonetheless. That’s what my brain tells me. But the company insists I’m not seeing what I’m seeing. One employee refers to it as “the property.”  

The company insists it’s not a car — one employee refers to it as “the property”  

It’s easier to describe what it’s not, rather than what it is. For example, it doesn’t look like a toaster on wheels, as some autonomous “people movers” tend to do. A microwave might be more accurate, but I’m not convinced.

Its official name is “Origin,” and Kyle Vogt, the co-founder and chief technology officer of Cruise, is clearly excited to be showing it off. With a broad smile, he reaches out and touches a button on the side, causing the doors to slide open with a little whoosh like something out of Star Wars . 

Inside are two bench seats facing each other, a pair of screens on either end... and nothing else. The absence of all the stuff you expect to see when climbing into a vehicle is jarring. No steering wheel, no pedals, no gear shift, no cockpit to speak of, no obvious way for a human to take control should anything go wrong. There’s a new car smell, but it’s not unpleasant. It’s almost like cucumber-infused water. 

“The way vehicles are designed, normally they have a hood in the front where the engine is and some storage in the trunk,” Vogt says, as we sit across from each other. “But when you don’t need all that stuff... we can have this enormous, spacious cabin without taking up any more space on the road than a regular car would. Which is kind of insane.”

But the Origin is arriving into an unforgiving world: half of Americans are skeptical to the point of being fearful about self-driving cars . They don’t mind a car that can drive itself — as long as they can take over when they choose. That’s impossible with this vehicle. I ask Vogt where he gets the confidence to take away everything we’ve come to associate with human driving. 

“when you don’t need all that stuff... we can have this enormous, spacious cabin”

“I guess it’s important to note that we haven’t validated and released our technology yet,” he says. “So we haven’t gone out there and said it’s safer than a human and getting ready for prime time. But we’re getting pretty close.”

Approximately 18 minutes later, after a brief tour of the vehicle and back-and-forth about the company’s grand plans for the Origin, Vogt says something bolder. “By the time this vehicle goes into production, we think the core software that drives our AVs will be at a superhuman level of performance and safer than the average human driver,” he says. “And we’ll be providing hard empirical evidence to back up that claim before we put people in a car without someone in it.” 

Cruise has often been described as a “division” or “unit” of General Motors, but the company prefers “majority owned subsidiary.” (The automaker technically owns two-thirds of Cruise, which it bought in 2016 .) However, GM isn’t the only major automaker in Cruise’s corner. In October 2018, Honda announced its plan to invest $2.75 billion in Cruise over 12 years. The company has also raised money from Japan’s SoftBank Vision Fund and T. Rowe Price, and has a valuation of $19 billion. 

As part of the Honda deal, GM teamed up with the Japanese automaker to design a “purpose-built” self-driving car. A “purpose-built car” is not a normal car retrofitted to be self-driving, as a majority of the autonomous vehicles on the road today are. Rather, it’s a car designed from the ground up to drive itself. That would be in addition to the steering wheel-and-pedal-less Chevy Bolt that GM and Cruise are working on. At the time, Vogt teased a vehicle with “giant TV screens, a mini bar, and lay-flat seats.” 

“We built this car around the idea of not having a driver”

The Origin has none of these amenities, but Vogt insists its real asset is its modularity. “We built this car around the idea of not having a driver and specifically being used in a ride-share fleet,” he says. “This vehicle is engineered to last a million miles and all the interior components are replaceable. The compute is replaceable, the sensors are replaceable. And what that does is it drives the cost per mile down way lower than you could ever reach if you took a regular car and tried to retrofit it. The replacement cost and the upkeep of that would just kill you from a business standpoint.”

I don’t typically hear AV companies talk about “unit economics” and profitability. But that’s going to creep up sooner than a lot of people realize, Vogt says. Experts estimate that each self-driving car could cost upward of $300,000-$400,000, when taking into account the expensive sensors and computing software needed to allow the vehicles to drive themselves. Recouping those costs will be enormously challenging, and Cruise is trying to address that by building a car with more staying power than most personally owned vehicles. 

Cruise has been working on the design of the Origin for over three years, but Honda’s involvement “super charged” the effort. The two automakers didn’t collaborate on every tiny detail; instead, they split up the work based on their expertise. GM was responsible for the base vehicle design and the electric powertrain, while Honda helped create the interior’s “efficient use of space,” Vogt says. Meanwhile, Cruise handled the sensing and computing technologies, as well as the experience from the rider’s standpoint.

We don’t typically hear AV companies talk about “unit economics” and profitability

Vogt allows that the sensor suite could change before the vehicle goes into production. But right now, it has the standard configuration found in many AVs on the road today: radar, cameras and LIDAR laser sensors. The hard drive, stored in the trunk and housing the vehicle’s artificial intelligence and perception software, is cooled by the vehicle’s battery system, making it quieter and less prone to overheating than previous iterations. That means passengers riding in the forward-facing seats won’t have to experience overly toasty tushies ( as I have riding with another AV operator). 

Cruise, with Honda’s help, designed the interior of the vehicle primarily for shared rides. The screens, one on either side, will display an itinerary for picking up and dropping off each passenger, so riders know what to expect. Carpooling in the age of smartphones hasn’t exactly been the runaway success that ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft have hoped. But Cruise thinks its abundance of space can help minimize the friction. 

“It’s designed to be comfortable if it’s shared, but if it’s just you, you’ve got so much space in here you can really like stretch out,” he says, extending his legs so his feet almost touch mine. Almost, but not quite.

Look, as far as I’m concerned, Cruise’s Origin is a car. Cruise says it wants to “move beyond the car,” but I’m not convinced the absence of certain controls negates its inherent car-ness. As Vogt points out, it occupies the same amount of space as an SUV, and Cruise claims it can travel at normal city speeds. It is a car-like shape and does car-type things, like traveling down a road with people in it. And if there isn’t another good name for it — “the property” notwithstanding — then “car” will have to do.

I don’t begrudge the company for attempting to argue otherwise. The push for not-car-ness is evident in Cruise’s intense marketing campaign leading up to the unveiling of the Origin. The company recently emptied out its Instagram account — so long, photos of smiling people riding in the company’s fleet of self-driving Chevy Bolts — and posted a series of cryptic longitude and latitude coordinates that correspond with famous historical moments, like the invention of the compass and the steam locomotive. Not-car inventions that seriously changed how we travel, in other words.

as far as I’m concerned, Cruise’s Origin is a car

Even so, Cruise isn’t the first company to build and test a self-driving car without traditional controls. In December 2016, Google stunned the world when it revealed that it had put a blind man in one of its egg-shaped autonomous test vehicles and sent him out for a short ride around Austin, Texas. Google’s Firefly vehicle, audaciously designed by YooJung Ahn , is widely considered to be the first car tested publicly without a steering wheel or pedals.

Waymo, the company spun out of Google’s self-driving project, retired the Firefly in 2017. But in a recent podcast interview , Waymo CEO John Krafcik voiced curiosity that no one has replicated the feat since. “Why do you think no one has done that yet?” Krafcik said on the Autonocast . “Because we all sort of scratch our heads and say, ‘Is there not the capability there? Or folks have the capability but they’ve chosen not to do it or not to show it?’”

Cruise hasn’t been as forthcoming with its technology as Waymo. The company has only hosted one demo ride for journalists in 2017, which produced embarrassing headlines such as Reuters ’ “Taco truck halts GM autonomous car’s cruise through city streets.” 

There have been other bumps in the road as well. Cruise’s plan to test its vehicles in New York City — arguably the most difficult driving environment in the US — went nowhere . In July 2019, the company announced that it would miss its goal of launching a large-scale self-driving taxi service by the end of the year . It tried to sugarcoat the disappointing news by announcing a plan to dramatically increase the number of its test vehicles on the road in San Francisco. 

Coming right on the heels of the Consumer Electronics Show and its cavalcade of concept cars and design projects , there’s a sense that Cruise is trying to beat back diminishing expectations. The past year has been a pretty bad one for believers in the technology: missed deadlines, rising concerns over safety, and the growing belief that making autonomous vehicles will be harder, slower, and more expensive than previously thought. 

Cruise is trying to recapture some of that early magic with this vehicle. But it’s also attempting to be more pragmatic and attuned to the realities of growing and scaling a real business. 

Of course, bureaucracy and politics could drive the whole thing right off the road. 

Remember the unsettling lack of steering wheel, break pedals, and so on? That means the Cruise’s not-car will require an exemption from the federal government’s motor vehicle safety standards. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration only grants 2,500 petitions a year. GM submitted a petition for permission to deploy a fully driverless Chevy Bolt in 2018, but it has yet to receive a response. And it will most likely need another exemption before the Origin is allowed to hit the road, too.  

Safety advocates are urging NHTSA to take its time in deliberating these changes. For example, the Center for Auto Safety “strongly question[s]” the NHTSA’s decision to prioritize these rule changes considering self-driving cars are still in their “infancy and quite likely decades away from widespread practical utility.” And the National Automobile Dealers Association, meanwhile, takes issue with the use of the term “barriers” to describe current safety standards and argues that self-driving cars should continue “to allow also for human control.”

Remember the unsettling lack of steering wheel, break pedals, and so on?

GM isn’t the only company seeking to fast-track these changes. Ford has said it will build an autonomous car without a steering wheel or pedals by 2021, while Waymo has begun offering a limited number of rides in fully driverless minivans to its customers in Phoenix, Arizona.

Cruise is clearly feeling the heat from its competitors, especially when you consider that it has yet to take the important step of launching a commercial business. The company has a beta ride-hailing service, but it’s only available to employees, and Cruise won’t say when it will be available to the broader public. The company also won’t say when the Origin will roll out, but promises to share more information about its production plans in the future. (It’s already been burned once when it missed its 2019 robo-taxi deadline, so it seems the company wants to be careful that doesn’t happen again.)  

I have so many more questions — about the sensor suite, the business model, the testing (if any) that Cruise has conducted — but I’m informed that our time is done. The event is being managed by a unionized workforce, and any additional time could cost Cruise an additional $12,000. I thank Vogt for his time and jokingly ask if there’s an “abort” button in the vehicle. 

“I think it’s been pushed,” he says, grinning. “You just go straight through the ceiling.”

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California orders Cruise driverless cars off the roads because of safety concerns

A Cruise technician comes to restart a driverless car in San Francisco. Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

A Cruise technician comes to restart a driverless car in San Francisco.

California has ordered the company Cruise to immediately stop operations of its driverless cars in the state. The Department of Motor Vehicles said on Tuesday that it was issuing the indefinite suspension because of safety issues with the vehicles.

"When there is an unreasonable risk to public safety, the DMV can immediately suspend or revoke permits," the DMV wrote in a statement. "There is no set time for a suspension."

The move comes after one of Cruise's driverless cars struck a pedestrian in downtown San Francisco earlier this month. The incident involved a woman who was first hit by a human driver and then thrown onto the road in front of a Cruise vehicle. The Cruise vehicle braked but then continued to roll over the pedestrian, pulling her forward, then coming to a final stop on top of her.

Rescuers used the jaws of life to remove the vehicle and free the woman. The pedestrian survived but sustained life-threatening injuries.

"Our teams are currently doing an analysis to identify potential enhancements to the AV's response to this kind of extremely rare event," said Navideh Forghani, a Cruise spokesperson.

Forghani said Cruise provided regulators a video of the incident and is complying with the DMV's order and "pausing operations." Those cars that have a human safety driver will be allowed to continue operating in the state.

The DMV originally gave Cruise a permit for 300 driverless vehicles in San Francisco, but it cut that number in half after one of its cars collided with a firetruck in August.

Driverless cars run by Cruise, which is owned by GM, and Waymo, which is owned by Alphabet, have been involved in numerous mishaps in the city over the past several months. They've run red lights , rear-ended a bus and blocked crosswalks and bike paths.

San Francisco's police and fire departments have also said the cars aren't yet ready for public roads . They've tallied more than 55 incidents where self-driving cars have gotten in the way of rescue operations . Those incidents include driving through yellow emergency tape, blocking firehouse driveways, running over fire hoses and refusing to move for first responders.

Despite those incidents, state regulators voted in August to allow self-driving car companies to expand their operations in San Francisco and other California cities. That prompted the city of San Francisco to file motions with the state demanding a halt to that expansion.

"We need actual people behind the wheel with a pulse and a brain that know how to maneuver in sticky situations," San Francisco Supervisor Shamann Walton said at Tuesday rally protesting the driverless cars. "These Cruise vehicles are dangerous on our streets. When they see tragedy or see danger or there's an obstacle in their way, all they know how to do is freeze."

Federal regulators are also looking at the safety of driverless cars. Last week, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into Cruise citing pedestrian safety concerns.

The crackdown on Cruise comes as GM announced during its earnings call this week that it is intent on expanding its driverless car program in the U.S.

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G.M. to Cut Spending on Cruise Self-Driving Unit

General Motors will “substantially lower spending” on autonomous vehicle efforts in 2024 after accidents with its self-driving taxis in San Francisco.

By Neal E. Boudette and Yiwen Lu

General Motors is slowing the expansion of its Cruise automated driving division and significantly cutting spending at the unit after suspending operations in response to growing safety concerns about its driverless cars.

The company had been planning to roll out a ride service in San Francisco and three other cities and begin testing Cruise vehicles on the streets of several other markets. It now plans to focus on only one city as it works to improve the operation of its fleet of driverless vehicles it has been testing.

“We expect the pace of Cruise’s expansion to be more deliberate when operations resume, resulting in substantially lower spending in 2024 than in 2023,” G.M.’s chief executive, Mary T. Barra, said Wednesday at an investor conference. “We must rebuild trust with regulators at the local, state and federal levels, as well as with the first responders and the communities in which Cruise will operate.”

Last month, California regulators suspended Cruise’s license to operate in the state after a Cruise self-driving vehicle in San Francisco ran over a pedestrian who had been hit by another car and dragged her for 20 feet.

The company responded by pulling all its driverless vehicles off the roads, citing a need to regain public trust.

G.M.’s chief financial officer, Paul Jacobson, said spending at Cruise would fall by “hundreds of millions of dollars” in 2024, and would probably fall further as the company reviewed the division’s operations.

Ms. Barra did not say how the drop in spending would affect Cruise’s work force, noting the company would provide more details after it reviewed independent safety reports on the San Francisco incident.

While commenting on Cruise, G.M. also gave a general business update, saying it expected to report 2023 net income of $9.1 billion to $9.7 billion — a slightly lower range than earlier forecasts — after strikes halted operations at three of its plants in the fall.

G.M. said the walkouts had cost the company $1.1 billion in operating profit and lowered its production by about 95,000 vehicles. It also said the new labor agreements with the United Automobile Workers union and Canada’s Unifor union — both of which include substantial wage increases — would add $500 to the cost of its North American vehicles in 2024. Ms. Barra said the increase in labor costs, however, would be “fully offset” by cost-cutting measures the company had been carrying out over the last year or so.

G.M. also said it would buy back up to $10 billion of its stock in a bid to raise the share price. “Our stock price is disappointing to everyone,” Ms. Barra said. After G.M.’s announcement, its shares rose 11 percent in early trading; they ended the day up 9 percent at nearly $32, though still barely half their price two years ago.

She also said G.M. expected to increase production of electric vehicles significantly in 2024, after encountering lower-than-expected demand and delays in ramping up its E.V. output this year.

“Although the rate of growth is lower, E.V. demand is clearly moving in the right direction,” she said. “There’s really no reason E.V. demand won’t be higher in the years ahead.”

In her address, Ms. Barra said G.M. remained optimistic about Cruise’s future. “What Cruise has accomplished in the eight years since we acquired the company is remarkable,” she said. “Our priority now is to focus the team on safety, transparency and accountability.”

Founded in 2013 and bought by G.M. in 2016, Cruise is one of several startups that have been working to develop self-driving cars with the goal of creating a driverless-taxi business in cities across the United States. One of its rivals is Waymo, which is owned by Alphabet, the parent of Google.

Cruise has been testing self-driving taxi services in San Francisco, Phoenix, Houston and Austin, Texas, and it has tested its autonomous vehicles in six other cities, including Nashville and Seattle. In August, California regulators approved a move to let Cruise and Waymo charge for their driverless services around the clock in San Francisco, after having operated on a limited scale for over a year.

But in San Francisco, city officials, firefighters and police officers said Cruise’s driverless cars were posing safety risks and causing congestion by blocking fire trucks, stopping in the middle of busy streets and delaying firefighters’ responses to save lives.

Early this month, Cruise suspended an employee share buyback program after saying its valuation had changed. The suspension of the buyback program was earlier reported by Reuters .

On Nov. 19, Kyle Vogt, Cruise’s chief executive and a founder of the company, resigned. Dan Kan, the chief product officer, resigned later. Cruise did not appoint a replacement for Mr. Vogt.

In an email to Cruise employees at the time, Ms. Barra said she and the rest of Cruise’s board were “focused on setting Cruise up for long-term success,” adding: “Public trust is essential to this. As we work to rebuild that trust, safety, transparency and accountability will be our North Stars.”

Neal E. Boudette is based in Michigan and has been covering the auto industry for two decades. He joined The New York Times in 2016 after more than 15 years at The Wall Street Journal. More about Neal E. Boudette

Yiwen Lu reports on technology for The New York Times. More about Yiwen Lu

Driverless Cars and the Future of Transportation

China’s Advantage: Across China , more assisted driving systems and robot taxis are being tested than in any other country, with censors limiting discussions about safety.

A Very Slow Restart: An incident that seriously injured a pedestrian in San Francisco led Cruise, G.M.’s driverless car subsidiary, to take all of its cars off the road. The question now is when they will return .

An Appetite for Destruction: A wave of lawsuits argue that Tesla’s Autopilot software is dangerously overhyped. What can its blind spots teach us about Elon Musk, the company’s erratic chief executive ?

Along for the Ride: Here’s what New York Times reporters experienced during test rides in driverless cars operated by Tesla , Waymo  and Cruise .

The Future of Transportation?: Driverless cars, once a Silicon Valley fantasy, have become a 24-hour-a-day reality in San Francisco . “The Daily” looked at the unique challenges of coexisting with cars that drive themselves .

Breaking News

Tom Cruise’s daughter Suri ditches his last name for her graduation — which he missed

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Tom Cruise’s daughter Suri is going by a new last name.

At her graduation Friday from LaGuardia High School in New York City, the 18-year-old opted to give her name as “Suri Noelle” instead of Suri Cruise; she also used that name earlier this year when she appeared in a high school production of the jukebox musical “Head Over Heels.” Noelle is the middle name of her mother, Katie Holmes.

The “Risky Business” actor appears to have skipped Suri’s graduation weekend to hang out instead Saturday with all the celebs at Taylor Swift’s Eras tour in London , where he is filming another “Mission: Impossible” installment.

Holmes and Suri didn’t seem bothered by his absence on graduation day. The mother-daughter duo, perhaps eager to “shake it off,” were seen giggling and taking photos together outside of the graduation venue in celebration of Suri’s achievement.

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Suri was born in 2006, just before her parents tied the knot. TomKat stayed together until 2012, when Holmes filed for divorce , but Cruise was plagued by rumors that he had abandoned Suri in the process. In a 2013 defamation lawsuit filed by Cruise against Life & Style and In Touch publisher Bauer Publishing, the “Mission: Impossible” actor said, “The assertion that I ‘abandoned’ Suri after my divorce is patently false. I have in no way cut Suri out of my life — whether physically, emotionally, financially or otherwise.”

Cruise said he and Suri, who was then 6, “spoke on the phone nearly every day” and that he “regularly asked for and received updates concerning her friends and school life.”

Cruise is also the father of Bella, 31, and Connor, 29, whom he adopted with Nicole Kidman when they were married. Last year, he was photographed in public with Bella and Connor, reportedly for the first time in 15 years.

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Eva Hartman is a spring 2024 reporting intern with the Fast Break Desk at the Los Angeles Times. She is a senior at the University of Southern California studying international relations, where she has served as the news assignments editor and magazine editor at the Daily Trojan.

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New travel deals for Amazon Prime members on cruises, rental cars, flights and more

These savings on travel come in time for any last-minute summer vacations.

Amazon Prime Day is fast approaching, and beyond viral beauty products or hot new kitchenware, the e-commerce giant is introducing savings on travel just in time for any last-minute summer vacations.

Amazon partnered with various travel companies, including Southwest Airlines, Viator, Turo, Carnival, and others, to give Prime members early access to price cuts on travel packages, car rentals, and cruises.

In a similar move last summer fellow retail competitor Walmart partnered with Expedia to give Walmart+ members the ability to earn Walmart Cash by booking vacations.

"These travel deals are sort of an extra that they can offer their members," RetailMeNot editor Kristin McGrath told ABC News. "There are plenty of ways you can save and get discounts. These membership programs can just make it a little bit easier."

Amazon Prime travel deals and discounts for Prime Day

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Walmart+ travel deals.

The company offers discounts on fuel and travel, plus up to 20% back in Walmart Cash for booking through their portal during Walmart+ week.

Costco travel discounts and deals

The warehouse retailer's travel arm offers everyday savings on top-quality, brand-name vacations, hotels, cruises, and rental cars, exclusively for Costco members.

Teresita Nino has used Costco to book vacation packages and told ABC News how she saved on international deals.

"My last trip that we booked was to Saint Lucia and we ended up booking the airfare and the hotel -- I ended up saving about $700," Nino said of her experience using Costco. "Nine out of ten times is Costco Travel is always giving me a better deal overall than other travel companies."

Access to Costco's travel deals require a paid membership as an extra perk for customers.

"The travel savings are the cherry on top -- but it's not necessarily the most lucrative benefit," McGrath said. "In these membership programs, you have to take the value of membership as a whole rather than just joining to save on travel."

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Why disney's new cruise liner may be charting the wrong course.

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Concept art of the new Disney Adventure, which will have its home port in Singapore

More details about Disney's plans to expand its cruise line into Asia have emerged with an announcement about the entertainment onboard its new ship which will have its home in Singapore when it comes on stream next year.

Named the Disney Adventure, the 208,000-ton ship will carry around 6,700 passengers making it the world's third-biggest cruise liner by capacity. Disney reportedly bought it for just $44 million in 2022 after its previous owner, Hong Kong-based Genting Cruise Lines, fell into administration. Instead of sailing it to the United States to join the six other ships in its fleet, Disney decided to make the Adventure its first cruise liner with a home port in Asia.

As part of a collaboration between Disney Cruise Line and Singapore Tourism Board, the mega-ship will sail for at least five years from the Marina Bay Cruise Center just a 12 minute drive from Universal Studios Singapore. The location seems like a no-brainer as it brings the fight to the doorstep of Disney's biggest rival but actually Mickey may be charting the wrong course.

Singapore is the surprising location of Disney's Asian cruise port (Photo by Suhaimi Abdullah/Getty ... [+] Images)

Disney's ships are designed in an Art Deco style to reflect the golden age of cruising but inside they are awash with the kind of fairytale trappings that guests find in its theme parks. Photo opps with cuddly characters are de rigueur, as are Broadway-style extravaganzas based on classic Disney cartoons.

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Its latest ship, the Disney Wish, is also home to an interactive dinner show featuring scenes specially-shot by the actors of the wildly-popular Avengers super hero movies. On its top deck there is even an innovative water slide with screens set into the side of the tubes which tell a story about Mickey Mouse whilst riders rocket past on rafts propelled by powerful jets of water.

The Disney Adventure is set to make an even bigger splash as it will have an entire street themed to 2014's animated Oscar-winner Big Hero 6 which was a huge hit in Asia. A poolside retreat will be inspired by another animated favorite – Moana – while shops and restaurants will be based on classic Disney cartoons like The Little Mermaid and Lilo & Stitch. The Avengers will have their own hub.

"We're bringing the magic of Disney Cruise Line to Asia for the first time ever, and we want to give our guests the cruise relaxation and Disney fun they can only experience aboard one of our ships," said Sharon Siskie, senior vice president and general manager of Disney Cruise Line. "When they set sail on the Disney Adventure, guests will find incredible, immersive areas that bring the worlds of Disney, Pixar and Marvel to life in ways like never before – and these uniquely Disney experiences will inspire families to reconnect, recharge and make unforgettable memories that they'll cherish forever."

Disney Parks, Experiences and Products Chairman Josh D’Amaro and Singapore Tourism Board Chief ... [+] Executive Keith Tan announce the Disney Adventure (Daryl Goh, photographer)

They are the same kind of sentiments that Disney says guests will get from a visit to its theme parks and it's no coincidence. Disney's ships are almost the equivalent of mini theme parks which makes them ideal for locations where the media giant doesn't have an entertainment complex. Unlike Universal, Disney has repeatedly rejected the opportunity to build inner city Family Entertainment Centers, instead choosing to focus on fewer, much larger, resorts scattered around the world.

There are only six Disney theme park resorts and although this is one more than Universal, its rival is expected to overtake it in the coming years with new outposts in Texas and the United Kingdom. Disney's theme park strategy leaves it under-exposed in a number of major markets including India, Australia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates which is one of the wealthiest untapped areas as we have reported .

In fall last year Disney launched its first cruises in Australia where its closest park is a nine and a half hour flight away from the country's biggest city, Sydney. It may seem like the Adventure ship is plugging a similar gap as Disney doesn't have a park in Singapore. However, Asia is dripping with them. With parks in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo, Disney has more resorts in Asia than in the Americas. All three are within a seven-hour flight from Singapore with Hong Kong less than four hours away which is no bad thing at all.

As we recently reported , when Disney launched its cruise line in 1998, it opened its Castaway Cay private island in the Bahamas at the same time. This enabled it to sell twin-center breaks where stays at Walt Disney World in Orlando are combined with a cruise to Castaway Cay. It sets off from Port Canaveral, just 50 minutes by car from Orlando, with transportation laid on by Disney to make the two destinations seem like they are part of the same vacation.

Thanks to their immersive theming, Disney's cruises are popular with mega-fans as well as families. Many of the former have the biggest budgets and therefore give Disney the greatest gains. So much so indeed that in 2022 its Adventures By Disney tour operator launched a 24-day package visiting every Disney park by private jet for the princely price of $110,000 per person. Despite being in the midst of the pandemic, it sold out so fast that the tour returned the following year at the increased price of $115,000. Yet again it sold out so it is taking place for a third time in 2024.

With three Disney resorts within striking distance of Singapore it seems like a no-brainer to schedule a cruise that takes them all in but, remarkably, this doesn't seem to be on the cards. Disney's announcement makes it clear that the Adventure will sail on cruises for three and four nights from Singapore which is just about enough time to get to Hong Kong but not back. It certainly isn't enough time to take in all three of Disney's Asian resorts which are widely seen to be the jewels in its crown as we have reported .

Disney's cruises do not visit Tokyo DisneySea (Photo by Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images)

It isn't currently even possible to book any Disney cruises to or from Hong Kong, Shanghai or Tokyo despite all three being port cities with the theme parks in the latter located just a 22 minute drive from the terminal. A tour to these parks by ship would take several weeks though people would be prepared to pay a premium as Adventures By Disney has shown.

Disney could claim that this would defeat the object of the Adventure as it wouldn't be visiting untapped areas. However, if that is the driving force behind its location then Singapore isn't the ideal place for its home port as so many Disney parks are within a such a small catchment area.

Just last month, Disney's chief financial officer Hugh Johnston said that "the cruise business, frankly, is one that has an enormous number of opportunities for us" and it seems it hasn't plumbed the depths of all of them yet. The lack of a cruise which takes in all of the Asian resorts is another example of Disney leaving money on the table and it hasn't escaped the attention of other operators.

Testimony to this, cruising giant Holland America Line operates a voyage which visits the cities where all three resorts are located and it has been travelled with this benefit in mind by Disney mega-fans.

As we recently reported , the media giant has also been left in the wake of luxury operator Princess which was the first operator to introduce an on-board wireless guest recognition system even though Disney developed its own technology years earlier for its theme parks.

Likewise, as we also reported , earlier this year Princess swung open the doors to by far the most immersive entertainment experience at sea. Its spooky Spellbound nightspot is the first permanent outpost of Hollywood's exclusive Magic Castle club and it is packed with high-tech trickery. The venue has emerged ahead of a lounge based on Disney's Haunted Mansion theme park attraction which is due to debut on its new Treasure ship in December.

Industry giant Royal Caribbean has also cruised into Disney's waters with ships which are laden with attractions. In January it launched Icon of the Seas, the world's largest cruise liner which is also home to the Thrill Island water park, the largest at sea. Of course, other operators don't have Disney's characters and theme parks to keep them afloat and that's all the more reason why the Mouse should make the most of them.

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American Cruise Lines making multiple stops in Portsmouth in 2024: What to expect

PORTSMOUTH — American Cruise Lines has confirmed it will be making four stops this summer and fall at the Market Street Terminal.

The cruise line company’s first stop at the Port of New Hampshire near downtown Portsmouth will arrive on July 8, according to Myles Greenway, the Pease Development Authority’s interim director of ports and harbors.

That will be followed by stops in the popular tourist city on July 22, Aug. 17 and Oct. 2, according to a memo from Greenway to the PDA’s Board of Directors.

“The vessels are expected to be docked from between 24 to 48 hours at each visit,” Greenway said.

American Cruise Lines, headquartered in Connecticut, operates 18 vessels along a variety of waterways nationwide, including Puget Sound, the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean along the East Coast from Maine to Florida.

The stops in Portsmouth will be part of its Grand New England Cruise, which starts and ends in Boston, with other stops that include Portland, Maine, Gloucester and Provincetown, Massachusetts, and Newport, Rhode Island, according to the company’s website.

More visits to come

Alexa Paolella, the public relations manager for the company, said “American Cruise Lines is so pleased to be visiting Portsmouth in 2024 with our small U.S.-built ships.”

Their ships carry between “just 90-180 guests each,” she said. “We look forward to more visits in the years to come."

Eric Dussault, the director of port operations for American Cruise Lines, previously stated the company offers “small ship cruising.”

“When they hear about cruise ships, people get this notion of 4,000 people being dumped into a downtown,” he said. “That’s not us. We’re really a boutique experience.”

For someone who hasn’t experienced an American Cruise Lines cruise, he said there’s a strong focus on “customer service and attention to detail.”

“With only 100 guests on board, you really get to know the people,” he said.

Cruise ship stops brings tourists without cars to Portsmouth

Reached Thursday, Portsmouth Mayor Deaglan McEachern noted there have been efforts to bring cruise ships to Portsmouth “for a long time.”

“It’s exciting to see this is actually coming to fruition,” McEachern said.

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He called the arrival of the American Cruise Line boats to the Market Street terminal, “a pretty big occurrence for Portsmouth.”

He noted that Portsmouth is a “port city with a working port," adding, “We’ve got a Clipper ship as a mascot.”

“We certainly want to celebrate them coming up,” McEachern said.

He pointed out that with all the historic city has to offer, “sometimes we fail to appreciate how beautiful Portsmouth is seeing it from the (Piscataqua) river.”

“That’s a special thing and it should be celebrated by our seaside community,” McEachern said.

In practical terms, having people come into Portsmouth to visit the city on a boat, means “we’ll have tourists here who don’t have cars,” he said. “So they won’t be taking up parking spots and that’s a win for the city."

He acknowledged “there’s always concerns when something new happens,” but he believes the scale of American Cruise Lines’ boats “seems to fit Portsmouth.”

“I think this is going to be a positive outcome for Portsmouth,” the mayor said.

Portsmouth pleased to be a destination

Ben VanCamp, the president of the Chamber Collaborative of Greater Portsmouth, believes the visits by American Cruise Lines “are going to be a pretty positive thing for our community.”

“American Cruise Lines is pretty selective,” when it comes to adding new stops, VanCamp said.

“It’s a compliment to our community they’ve chosen us,” he said. “The other stops along the New England coast are all great destinations.”

At the same time, he stated Portsmouth hosts groups of people coming into the city for events or conferences “all the time.”

“It’s 100 people coming to town. We do that several times a week,” he said, while adding, “We welcome them and we’re excited to have them here. There’s been a lot of interest in the business community.”

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VanCamp said he’s been in contact with American Cruise Line officials to suggest places for their guests to visit while in Portsmouth.

“American Cruise Lines has been great to work with, they’ve been communicating with us and the city,” VanCamp said.

The cruise line company is slated to transport its guests around the city on a “full-size bus,” he added, so chamber officials told them how to avoid tight turns on some of Portsmouth’s historic streets.

Cruise guests

American Cruise Lines guests come “from all over the country,” Dussault said in a previous interview.

“Typically our guests are folks who are older but have been well-traveled throughout their lives,” he said. “Now they want to stay closer to home and travel domestically.”

“It’s a mature, affluent clientele who comes on our cruises for the enrichment and entertainment,” Dussault said.

And they “enjoy when they come to a location that has such a vibrant downtown area, with shops and all types of restaurants,” he said.

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Cars Under the Stars, fireworks, festivals: 5 things to do in metro Detroit this weekend

As people prepare for cookouts and family gatherings leading up to the Fourth of July holiday, several communities in metro Detroit are set to host festivals, carnivals, concerts, and have firework displays this weekend. Car enthusiasts can look forward to the Fort Street Cruise in Downriver, as well as a car show at the Livonia Spree.

Here are some things to do for the weekend of June 28-30.

Cars Under the Stars Fireworks Spectacular

Enjoy fireworks from the Motorsports Track, with live entertainment, family games and displays, food trucks and craft beer at this event presented by Coca-Cola .

The fireworks show is scheduled to begin at 9:45 p.m.

The event will take place from 5-10 p.m. Sunday at M1 Concourse, 45399 Woodward Ave. in Pontiac. General admission starts at $30, with tickets available for purchase online at M1 Concourse .

Fort Street Cruise 2024

Car enthusiasts will enjoy a diverse array of vehicles, including vintage, classic, custom, modern muscle, exotics, tricked-out, and other interesting vehicles as they cruise down Fort Street through several Downriver communities.

The cruise is scheduled from 8 a.m.-10 p.m. Saturday along Fort Street from Southfield Road and Sibley Road passing through Lincoln Park, Southgate, Wyandotte and Riverview.

Trenton Summer Festival

Enjoy craft vendors, food trucks, a beer tent, and a kids' corner alongside three stages of live entertainment featuring Mad Mad World , Shakedown, Dishwalla, Vendors, Mega 80s , Foxound , and more. A fireworks display will take place at 10 p.m. Saturday.

The festival runs from 10 a.m.-midnight Friday and Saturday, and 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday at 2800 Third St. in Trenton.

Taylor Summer Festival

This festival presented by the Taylor Rotary Club will feature concerts by 38 Special , April Wine , The Hideaways , and Dave Fio . Enjoy an all-new drone show display at dusk on Friday, and a fireworks display on Saturday.

Gates open at 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Heritage Park, 12111 Pardee Road, Taylor. Concert ticket prices are $30 in advance ($35 day of show) for reserved seating, and $15 in advance ($10 day of show) for general admission standing room. The fireworks show is free.

Livonia Spree

This annual event will include an amusement park, food, games, live entertainment, a beer tent, petting farm, kids zone, car show, fireworks and more.

Enjoy performances by Rude Dogs , Sunset Blvd , Steve King and the Dittilies , Atomic Radio Band , and others.

The fireworks display is scheduled for Sunday at dusk (approx. 10:15 p.m.).

The festival runs from 2-11 p.m. through Friday, and noon-11 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at 33841 Lyndon St. in Livonia.

Brendel Hightower is an assistant editor at the Detroit Free Press.   Contact her at  [email protected] .   Support local journalism:  Subscribe to the Detroit Free Press .

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Car shows, fireworks, festivals: 5 things to do in metro Detroit

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