Cruze v. Cruise
 Cruze The Former GM Car Model |
 Cruise Automation |
Cruze v. Cruise
By Maureen McDonald
Senior Editor
Michigan Bureau
The Auto Channel
 |
If your mind gets addled by all the news generated in the 24/7 scrum, it's easy to get confused by General Motors investment in Cruise Automaton and The Cruze a formerly star vehicle.. One is a rising star; the latter is a has-been (was-been, better?) .
The Chevrolet Cruze is (was) a compact car offered in a four-door sedan or a five door hatchback. Cruze, developed in South Korea as the Daewoo Lacetti Premier until 2008 when it came to Lordstown, OH, for production in the massive plant. It was given the death knell in December 2018. Analysts expected Cruze would save GM because the design and engineering were handled overseas. The population would be hungry for an affordable car.
Alas, Mary Barra, GM CEO said closure of the plant and laying off the 1,400 workers would help the automaker become “more agile, resilient and profitable." The 2019 models will halt production in March. She said changing consumer preferences are behind the company’s shift away from cars and toward crossover vehicles, SUVs and trucks.
Forward thinking money, according to General Motors, is investing in autonomous vehicle technology under the umbrella of Cruise. GM President Dan Amman left his post to become CEO of Cruise, working with Cruise co-founder Kyle Vogt who becomes president. The giant automaker bought the San Francisco-based Cruise for $1 billion (with a B). Its first launch will be a self-driving taxi service late this year and a stock spin-off that will generate cash for the Silicon Valley Robber Barons and their claques.
At the same time Soft Bank Vision Fund and Honda have invested $750 million into Cruise, which, before pumping out a single vehicle, is worth $14.6 billion. Cruise expects to be an industry leader in self-driving cars, increasing employment from 40 to more than 1,000, not far from the same number of workers whose jobs were vanquished.
Barra was bullish about the change, speaking in a press release: “These appointments further demonstrate our commitment to transforming mobility through the safe deployment of self-driving technology and move us closer to our vision for a future with zero crashes, zero admissions and zero congestion.”
As the nation hurtles forward toward these autonomous cars, toward a time that cars won’t be owned, just rented by the hour, we might think of the workers in Lordstown, who lament no job on the horizon. They will be among those who resort to a periodic taxi Cruise because of limited finances for a car, insurance and maintenance payments.
I’m so confused I think I’ll book a boat cruise to relax.
SEE ALSO: https://getcruise.com/mission, Co-publishers Thought: Although the Cruise website states that autonomous cars like theirs will save millions of lives each year. When you look into those number you find that in the US around 40,000 die in vehicle crashes yearly, with the rest of the 1 million across the globe, mostly in third world countries where nobody will be able to afford to buy a GM, Honda Cruise Vehicle...Cruise Automation just more Silicon Valley Investment Banker bullshit if you ask me....and Mary bought it hook line and sinker with no regard to GM employees in the con-job transaction.
