GM Hits Another Speed Bump: Autonomous Van Project Cruise Origin Suspended Amid Safety Concerns

Cruise parent General Motors Co GM has reportedly decided to suspend the production of its autonomous van called the Origin in light of recent safety concerns and subsequent pause on driverless operations across all Cruise fleets.

What Happened: Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt held a meeting on Monday where he announced the pause in Origin’s production, Forbes reported. Despite the production halt, Vogt said that several hundred Origin vehicles were already produced and that this number is “more than enough for the near term when we are ready to ramp things back up.”

“We are finishing production on a small number of pre-commercial vehicles and after that, plan to temporarily pause production,” a GM spokesperson confirmed to Benzinga in a statement. They emphasized that the pause, however, is temporary as it continues to believe Origin to be an important part of the autonomous vehicle journey.

Origin is an entirely autonomous vehicle with no manual controls or pedals. During GM’s third-quarter earnings call last month, company CEO Mary Barra said the company is working with Honda Motor Co to bring driverless rides to Tokyo in early 2027 with Origin.

“We’ll do that with our Origin, the world’s first-ever vehicle purpose-built for autonomous driving on public roads. As Cruise continues to push the boundaries of what AV technology can deliver society, safety is always at the forefront,” Barra had said.

Vogt said in April that the company's Cruise Origin AV will commence testing in Austin soon and help achieve profitability.

Why It Matters: Late last month, Cruise announced that it would pause driverless operations across all its fleets.

Cruise paused its AV operations in San Francisco following a directive from the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). California DMV suspended Cruise’s autonomous vehicle deployment and driverless testing permits citing ‘unreasonable risk’ to public safety. The authority further alleged that the company misrepresented information on the safety of its autonomous technology.

The suspension of operations in Austin, Phoenix, and Houston followed a few days later. The company will, in the meantime, examine its processes, systems, and tools to assess how it can operate better, Cruise said on X, formerly Twitter. 

In the last quarter, Cruise reported an EBIT-adjusted loss of $732 million, a 47% increase from $497 million a year earlier.

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Photo courtesy: Cruise