General Motor’s Cruise robotaxi unit has been under the radar since an accident that took place in October 2023 involving a pedestrian. The fallout from the accident continues to weigh on the self-driving car company, leading to its internal share price cut by more than half from a quarter ago. A third party had pegged the share price at USD 11.80, according to an email viewed by Reuters, which is down from a prior estimate of USD 24.27 just one quarter ago.
In the email, chief administrative officer for Cruise, Craig Glidden wrote, “We cannot ignore that this estimate is significantly lower than we’ve seen before and that there are real life impacts for each of us.” He added that Cruise has a “longer pathway towards scaled commercialisation.”
The company last year had plans to roll out self-driving taxis in nearly a dozen US cities but instead has cut a quarter of jobs and seen its CEO, co-founder and other high-level executives leave.
The latest numbers reflects “current market conditions and our operating reality,” a Cruise spokesperson told Reuters, adding that the company is focused on “earning the trust of regulators and the public before relaunching.” The cut to Cruise’s valuation follows Apple’s cancellation this week of its decade-long attempt to develop an electric car.
Following the incident that took place in October when a woman was dragged by one of its vehicles after being struck by a human driven car, Cruise has been working to recover. The company’s permit to operate in California was suspended and it has stopped all testing on public roads in the United States. Its robotaxis are not expected to be seen on city streets again until the fourth quarter.
The company last month slashed about USD 1 billion from its annual budget and released a withering safety analysis of the October crash in which evidence was shown that executives withheld important data from regulators, the press and the public. It is being probed by a variety of government agencies including the Securities and Exchange Commission, Department of Justice and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.