The production of autonomous vehicles has been suspended, and the operating license has been revoked. Cruise has started reducing the number of temporary workers

On November 10, it was reported that Cruise, a autonomous vehicle subsidiary of GM, an American automobile giant, had begun to lay off employees. Previously, the company suspended all self driving businesses and lost the key commercial license to operate self driving taxi services in San Francisco

On November 10, it was reported that Cruise, a autonomous vehicle subsidiary of GM, an American automobile giant, had begun to lay off employees. Previously, the company suspended all self driving businesses and lost the key commercial license to operate self driving taxi services in San Francisco.

According to foreign media reports, Cruise laid off a large number of temporary employees on Thursday local time in the United States, mainly responsible for supporting autonomous driving fleets. Tiffany Testo, a spokesperson for the company, said that these people's jobs include cleaning, charging, and maintaining vehicles, as well as answering customer inquiries. Of course, not all temporary employees employed by third parties have been dismissed. Tesla stated that severance payments will be handled by intermediary companies.

Meanwhile, General Motors has previously stated that it will temporarily suspend production of Origin, a specially manufactured autonomous taxi that Cruise has been testing in San Francisco and Austin.

General Motors spokesperson Aimee Ridella said in a statement, "We firmly believe in Cruise's mission and the transformative technologies it is developing. Safety must be our top priority, and we fully support the actions being taken by Cruise's leadership to ensure that it prioritizes safety and builds trust and credibility

According to sources attending the conference call, Kyle Vogt, the co-founder and CEO of Cruise, had already issued a warning during Monday's plenary meeting that layoffs were imminent. At that time, Vogt hinted that layoffs would begin in about three weeks. Cruise does not want to disclose how many temporary employees it has hired. The company has approximately 4000 full-time employees.

According to internal sources released by Cruise in the early hours of Thursday, the company told employees that there were several reasons for the layoff decision, including the suspension of autonomous driving business and the "temporary focus on supervised autonomous driving".

In recent months, Cruise suffered a series of setbacks, which eventually led to the California Motor Vehicle Authority (DMV) suspending the company's autonomous vehicle license. Not long after, the California Public Utilities Commission also revoked Cruise's license, which allowed Cruise to charge for providing autonomous taxi services.

After a car accident on October 2nd, the relevant authorities suspended Cruise's permission. In this accident, a pedestrian was first hit by a car driven by a human driver and collapsed in a nearby lane, before being run over by a Cruise autonomous taxi.

The Cruise taxi initially activated the brakes and stopped when pedestrians were pressed under the car. But then, it attempted to pull over and dragged the pedestrian about 6 meters away. The decision of the autonomous taxi to try to pull over is part of the reason why the relevant authorities have decided to suspend the Cruise license.

A few days later, Cruise suspended all autonomous driving services in other cities, including Austin, Houston, and Phoenix. On Wednesday local time in the United States, Cruise announced that it will recall 950 cars equipped with its autonomous driving software.

The company stated in a blog article and a recall notice submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that after analyzing the reaction of self driving taxis on October 2nd, the company issued a recall notice. Analysis has found that the collision detection subsystem may cause Cruise taxis to attempt to pull over instead of staying stationary when their reaction after a collision is not ideal. (Small)