Commercial driverless rides will take some time before generating revenue
The self-driving Co Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors, recently announced its plan to bring robotaxis to the US cities of Phoenix (Arizona) and Austin (Texas). The CEO of the company, Kyle Vogt said that the small-scale driverless operations will be live by the end of this year itself, while the revenue generating and scaled operations will follow next year.
It is interesting to note that after receiving approval in June this year, Cruise has started the commercial roll-out of driverless rides in its autonomous Chevrolet Bolts in San Francisco. In Phoenix, the company conducted a pilot project with Walmart to deliver customers’ purchases by a self-driving car. Alphabet-owned Waymo has been active in the similar service of driverless rides in the eastern suburbs, making it a competitor to the new entrant here.
Talking about the approvals, Vogt said, “It took us 33 months to get all the permits necessary for commercial operation in California. And I think along that way, we built a lot of credibility and trust … because to get the permits for our next city, it took three weeks.”
Keenly looking at the interesting growth prospects of 2023, Vogt commented, “There’s going to be thousands of AVs rolling out of General Motors plants, including the first Origins. And we’ll be using those to light up in many more markets and to start to generate meaningful revenue in those markets.” It must be noted that as per General Motors records, Cruise faced a loss of $900 million in H1 2021.
