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GM to Jump Ahead in Self-Driving Car Development with the Acquisition of Cruise

The Cruise Automation startup will be acquired by General Motors, the automaker from Detroit announced.
Cruise Automation Leadership Team 1 photo
Photo: Cruise Automation
GM has decided it would be best to buy the company that has developed an aftermarket self-driving system to accelerate its progress on autonomous cars.

We are talking about Cruise Automation, a company that has created a hardware and software solution that was presented as a system that can be added to a standard car and turn it into a semi-autonomous or even a fully autonomous vehicle.

This is not GM's only acquisition in the field of personal mobility, as the carmaker has entered into a collaboration with ride-sharing company Lyft, and formed Maven, a personal mobility brand for car-sharing fleets across the United States of America.

GM even has a separate unit for autonomous vehicle development, so their intentions on the matter are more than marketing bragging rights.

The corporation from Detroit will fully acquire Cruise Automation, a startup founded by Kyle Vogt, an engineer that is also responsible for the development of Twitch, the streaming video solution for gamers.

Vogt is considered a genius in the world of startups, as the Cruise Automation venture is a project he developed from scratch and is the second multi-billion dollar project he sells in just a matter of years. Mr. Vogt is praised by the people who worked with him for being able to develop his projects in both hardware and software, a feat that is becoming rarer these days.

General Motors has not specified how much they will pay to buy the startup, but industry analysts estimate the deal to be worth over a billion dollars. GM considers that self-driving vehicles will bring enormous benefits to their customers, and introducing them to the market as soon as possible will favor the company.

It is fair to note that GM is not the only company out of the Detroit Big Three that has heavily invested in the field of self-driving cars. Ford has a broad agenda in this area and is already working with Google and Microsoft on the matter. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles will probably pick a tech partner soon, but they have not announced anything yet. Their semi-autonomous features are currently designed in-house.
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About the author: Sebastian Toma
Sebastian Toma profile photo

Sebastian's love for cars began at a young age. Little did he know that a career would emerge from this passion (and that it would not, sadly, involve being a professional racecar driver). In over fourteen years, he got behind the wheel of several hundred vehicles and in the offices of the most important car publications in his homeland.
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