General Motors has decided to discontinue its robotaxi project, Cruise, after investing $10 billion over eight years. The automaker's CEO, Mary Barra, announced the surprise move, citing the high costs and regulatory hurdles associated with developing a shared autonomous mobility service.

According to Barra, GM will instead focus on developing autonomous vehicles for personal ownership, which the company believes is a more viable and profitable business model. This shift in strategy comes as the auto industry is increasingly investing in electric vehicles, and GM is looking to cut its losses on autonomous mobility.

The decision to abandon Cruise is reminiscent of Ford's similar move two years ago, when it pulled its funding for Argo AI, an autonomous driving startup it had financed since 2017. Ford cited a belief that partial autonomy, often described as Level 3 or Level 3-plus, would have more near-term payoffs.

Industry experts, such as Phil Koopman from Carnegie Mellon University, believe that GM's decision is a recognition that autonomous vehicle technology will take a decade or more to provide driverless rides at a national scale. Koopman noted that GM would rather make money selling private cars while waiting for the technology to mature than continue to invest billions of dollars in standing up robotaxi businesses city by city.

Behind the scenes, Cruise was facing turmoil, including technological progress marred by embarrassing incidents, such as its driverless vehicles blocking traffic or running into emergency vehicles in San Francisco. The company's first CEO, Dan Ammann, was sacked after sparring with Barra over the future direction of the company, and Cruise was continuing to rack up huge losses, including a staggering $3.48 billion in 2023.

The final straw came when a Cruise vehicle in San Francisco struck and dragged a pedestrian over 20 feet, seriously injuring her. The incident damaged Cruise's effort to win public trust, and regulators didn't like being misled about the accident. The California DMV suspended Cruise's permit to operate self-driving cars in the state, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Securities and Exchange Commission launched separate investigations.

With Cruise out of the picture, Waymo is one of the only remaining companies aiming to prove that robotaxis can work in the real world. Tesla is also pursuing its own robotaxi project, which it claims will launch in 2026. Meanwhile, GM will tackle a new risky experiment: personally owned autonomous vehicles. The company knows how to sell cars to people, and it already has a hands-free highway driving feature called Super Cruise.

However, experts warn that driver-assistance technologies, especially Level 3 systems, carry their own risks. There have been studies that show that the handoff between a partially automated system and a human driver can be especially fraught, potentially leading to accidents.

The safety implications are enormous, as are the liability concerns. GM may eventually decide that robotaxis aren't such a bad bet after all.