Driverless car startup Cruise's no good, terrible year
A year ago, the future seemed bright for the driverless car startup Cruise. As 2022 wrapped up, CEO Kyle Vogt took to Twitter to post about the company's autonomous vehicles rolling onto the streets of San Francisco, Austin and Phoenix.
"Folks," he wrote, "we are entering the golden years of AV expansion."
Robotaxis, which give rides to any paying customer with no driver at the wheel, were one of the latest tech products to be fully unleashed to the public this year. Dozens of companies, including Alphabet's Waymo and Amazon's Zoox, have been competing to be king. Cruise, which is owned by General Motors, was one of the fastest growing of those startups.
GM had poured billions into Cruise as the company emphasized scaling up at an unprecedented pace.
"We're on a trajectory that most
