General Motors to Take Active Role in Shaping Safety Culture at Cruise
General Motors is taking a more active role in shaping the safety culture at Cruise, following a series of incidents that led California regulators to suspend permits allowing the autonomous vehicle subsidiary to operate commercially in the state. The former automaker is bringing in one of its own executives, who is also a member of Cruise’s board of directors, to lead the company’s legal and policy, communications, and finance teams.
Craig Glidden, GM’s Executive Vice President of Legal and Political Affairs and a member of Cruise’s board of directors, will assume the role of Chief Administrative Officer at Cruise. According to Cruise, Glidden will oversee workflows around transparency and community engagement.
Cruise also announced that it will suspend all operations of manual and supervised autonomous vehicles in the U.S., affecting around 70 vehicles, according to the company. Cruise had already voluntarily halted all its driverless operations in cities across the country, including Houston, Austin, and Phoenix, to «rebuild public trust» following an October 2nd event where a pedestrian, who had been hit by a human-driven vehicle, was struck and dragged 20 feet by a Cruise robotaxi.
«This orderly pause is another step towards rebuilding public trust as we undergo a comprehensive safety review,» according to a company blog post announcing the changes.
In early November, Cruise hired consulting firm Exponent to conduct a technical analysis of the root causes of the October 2nd incident. The company said on Tuesday that this mandate will be expanded to include a comprehensive review of all Cruise’s safety systems and technology.
Cruise’s board also said it will hire an external safety expert in the coming weeks to fully assess the company’s operations and safety culture. This move follows the example of other AV companies, including those that have faced scrutiny over their safety practices. Uber ATG, the former autonomous vehicle unit of the ride-hailing company, hired former National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Christopher Hart to advise the company on its safety culture following the fatal car crash in May 2018 in Arizona.
The external safety expert adds to last week’s announcement that Cruise will hire a Chief Safety Officer to report directly to Vogt. Other AV companies, like Aurora, have dedicated Chief Safety Officers. Cruise did not respond in time to confirm whether the company previously had an executive dedicated to overseeing safety at the company.
A survey conducted by Blind, an anonymous forum for verified employees, found that half of Cruise employees have no confidence (32%) or only slight confidence (18%) in Cruise’s safety culture. Over three-quarters of the 136 surveyed Cruise employees from November 7th to 8th said they believed Cruise was trying to scale too quickly.
The changes come one day after Cruise and GM held a board meeting to discuss the next steps for the embattled AV company. CEO Kyle Vogt had warned staff last week that layoffs would occur, and the company then began laying off subcontracted workers.