Ford and its partner Volkswagen decided to shut down the pair’s autonomous commercial vehicle company Argo AI back in October 2022, a decision that was made as the two came to the conclusion that Level 4 and 5 autonomy isn’t currently viable, nor close to being profitable. However, Ford hired around 600 former Argo AI engineers and is using the company’s old buildings to launch its own self-driving company called Latitude AI, which will focus on Level 2 and 3 autonomy, starting with an L3 version of BlueCruise. Meanwhile, Ford’s cross-town rival General Motors is stuck dealing with a PR nightmare after one of its AVs trapped and drug a pedestrian down the road after that person was hit by another vehicle last year. Now, that particular incident might also prompt GM to cancel its planned Ultra Cruise feature, according to GM Authority.
Ultra Cruise – the automaker’s next-generation semi-autonomous driver assistance system – was announced back in 2021 as the next generation version of the existing Super Cruise feature, one that aims to take its capabilities to the next level. However, GM reportedly plans to ditch Ultra Cruise and instead focus on the continued development of Super Cruise rather than offer two differently named systems.
GM refused to comment on this reported decision to cancel Ultra Cruise – which was originally slated to launch last year – but did provide a general statement. “Our focus remains on safely deploying this technology across GM brands and more vehicle categories while expanding to even more roads,” said the automaker’s vice president of global technology communications, Darryll Harrison Jr., while also adding that GM plans “to expand access to and increase the capability of Super Cruise.”
It’s unclear if this decision is related to GM’s many legal issues pertaining to Cruise, its self-driving tech entity, which is facing an investigation from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and a California DMV driverless permit suspension as a result. Following this incident, Cruise decided to suspend all of its autonomous rides in as it continues to investigate what went wrong in the aforementioned case, and recently issued a recall designed to update the collision detection system in its robotaxis, all while a number of key executives departed the company as a result.
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