GM's Cruise CEO: Honda Partnership Will Accelerate Timeline for Self-Driving Cars
*By Carlo Versano*
Shares of General Motors soared by as much as 5 percent Wednesday on news that Honda will take a stake in its Cruise unit as part of a new partnership to build an autonomous vehicle for "large-scale deployment."
"This is a great deal on the path to deploying self-driving cars at scale," Cruise CEO and co-founder Kyle Vogt said Wednesday in an interview on Cheddar.
Honda ($HMC) will bring $2.75 billion to the table over 12 years for a 5.7 percent stake in Cruise, valuing the GM ($GM) subsidiary at $14.6 billion ー that compares to a $11.5 billion valuation in May. Vogt said that Honda's engineering expertise, particularly in "space-efficient design" is a critical element of the joint venture.
The companies will work together to build an autonomous car from the ground up, Vogt said. Unlike Cruise or Google's ($GOOGL) Waymo unit of fleets of retrofitted SUVs and minivans, the mission is to completely rethink what an automobile is when a driver isn't needed ー or wanted, for that matter.
"We're removing the constraints of how cars drive today," Vogt said. "This is what comes next."
Vogt didn't give a timeline for roll-out, but he said the plan is for engineers from GM, Cruise, and Honda to first focus on a car that can be deployed in a rideshare capacity, making it "accessible to as many people as possible." In a press release, GM referred to it as "purpose-driven" vehicle, leaving the possibility open that it can be used for things like delivery, for example. The vehicle will be manufactured at a current GM plant.
A partnership of this size between two multinational auto giants shows the importance of scale as legacy manufacturers and tech start-ups jockey for position in a field that has the potential to revolutionize huge swaths of the economy.
Tesla ($TSLA) has proven how difficult it can be to produce a car "from scratch" without infrastructure in place or decades of assembly-line experience. GM and Honda have both.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/gms-cruise-teams-up-with-honda-on-autonomous-cars).
An independent watchdog within the IRS reports that while taxpayer services have vastly improved, the agency is still too slow to resolve identity theft cases. And National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins says those delays are “unconscionable.” Erin M. Collins said in the report released Wednesday that overall the 2024 filing season went smoothly, though IRS delays in resolving identity theft victim assistance cases are worsening. It took nearly 19 months to resolve self-reported identity theft cases as of January, and Wednesday's report states that now it takes 22 months to resolve these cases.
Amazon.com Inc. surpassed $2 trillion in market value for the first time in afternoon trading on Wednesday. The push higher for Amazon’s stock market valuation comes a little more than a week after Nvidia hit $3 trillion and briefly became the most valuable company on Wall Street. Nvidia’s chips are used to power many AI application and its valuation has soared as a result. Amazon has also been making big investments in AI as global interest has grown in the technology. Most of the company’s focus has been on business-focused products.
Climate change doesn’t just mean more extreme weather – it also leads to billions of dollars in lost productivity, tourism, and stresses infrastructure.
It’s an annual tradition: the Fed’s banking ‘stress test.’ A year after the regional banking crisis, there are good reasons to make sure they’re prepped.
Summer is upon us, which means weddings, trips overseas, and trips to see Taylor Swift. Avoid a “Cruel Summer” with these budget-friendly tips and tricks.
