General Motors Co. on Friday announced an additional investment of $3.45 billion USD in its all-electric self-driving subsidiary, Cruise.
$2.1 billion of the investment amount will go towards acquiring SoftBank Vision Fund 1’s equity ownership stake in Cruise, while the remaining $1.35 billion is going to be a direct investment in the country.
“We are extremely pleased to announce GM is leveraging the strength of its balance sheet to capitalize on the opportunity to increase its equity investment in Cruise and advance our integrated autonomous vehicle strategy. We continue to believe our investment represents an extraordinary opportunity for creating long-term shareholder value,” said GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra.
“Our increased investment position not only simplifies Cruise’s shareholder structure, but also provides GM and Cruise maximum flexibility to pursue the most value-accretive path to commercializing and unlocking the full potential of AV technology.”
General Motors originally acquired a majority ownership stake in Cruise back in 2016. Other noteworthy shareholders include Microsoft, which bought in with $2 billion in January 2021, and Walmart, which put $2.75 billion into the company in April 2021.
“GM’s increased investment illustrates its commitment to Cruise and our mission of creating a better world by deploying driverless cars at scale,” said Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt.
“Cruise will continue to operate as it does today – an independent company working alongside GM in a flexible, collaborative partnership. Cruise and GM’s continued partnership as well as GM’s financial strength and manufacturing scale are significant enablers and key differentiators for Cruise as we accelerate our progress and enter this next phase of commercialization.”
Since becoming a GM subsidiary, Cruise has gone on to deliver thousands of meals to San Francisco residents throughout the pandemic in its self-driving cars, and recently became the first company to offer fully driverless rides to the public in a major U.S. city. The company began testing its driverless vehicles in San Francisco back in December 2020.
Cruise’s fleet of autonomous driving vehicles features the Cruise Origin — “a zero-emissions, shared, electric vehicle that has been purposefully designed from the ground up to operate without a human driver.” The Cruise Origin is manufactured by GM in Michigan at the veteran automaker’s Factory ZERO.
