GM puts on hold the autonomous Cruise Origin shuttle van

General Motors has decided to halt production of the autonomous Cruise Origin shuttle van. The company, which owns a majority stake in Cruise, announced that Cruise will now prioritize the development of the next-generation Chevy Bolt. Last year, GM discontinued the previous Bolt model due to a transition away from an outdated battery system, but did not disclose any plans for a new model at that time.

According to a letter to shareholders from GM CEO Mary Barra, the indefinite delay of the van “relates to the regulatory uncertainty we faced with the Origin due to its unique design.” Barra added that the unit cost of the next-generation Bolt will be much lower, “which will help Cruise optimize its resources.”

GM and Cruise are working on Origin with Honda. The Origin – which has no driver’s seat, steering wheel or pedals – was due to debut in Japan in 2026.

In October, the California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended Cruise’s driverless vehicle licenses for safety reasons. Earlier that month, a pedestrian in San Francisco was dragged 20 feet by a cruise vehicle and pinned under it when a hit-and-run by another car pushed him into the path of a robot taxi. Cruise later suspended all driverless operations before temporarily halting production in November.

According to CNBC, Cruise’s former CEO Kyle Vogt at one point told staff that hundreds of pre-commercial Origin vehicles had been built. The company has continued robot taxi operations in Phoenix, Houston and Dallas with human operators and is conducting tests in Dubai. However, it has not resumed operations in San Francisco. The matter is still under investigation due to the October incident.

Shelving Origin is not a decision that GM and Cruise have come to lightly. In GM’s second-quarter earnings report, the automaker said it incurred about $583 million in cruise restructuring costs. It said these were due to “Cruise’s voluntary suspension of driverless, supervised and manual [autonomous vehicle” operations in the United States and an unspecified delay in Cruise Origin.

On the plus side, continued work on the Bolt (which will presumably use GM’s Ultium battery technology next time around) could be a boon to GM’s bottom line. As of 2023, the Bolt EV and EUV accounted for the majority of GM’s EV sales. It planned to make about 70,000 of them last year before ending production.