Yesterday General Motors announced that it was exiting the Cruise robotaxi business. Previously GM claimed robotaxis would generate $50 billion revenue by 2030. But as Yogi Berra famously said “It is dangerous to make forecasts, especially about the future.”

After assessing the competitive space, and the investments they would have to continue to make, GM decided to pull the plug on Cruise. Wall Street analysts were positive about the news – GM spent around 10 billion dollars so far, with not much to show for the expense. 

Even with the rapid improvement in artificial intelligence, autonomous driving is a difficult and complex endeavor.  It’s one thing to drive on an empty highway, it’s another matter altogether driving in a city during the rush hour. Anybody who has seen Waymo vehicles on the streets of San Francisco or has watched videos of said Waymo cars performing less than brilliantly, has some inkling of how far we have to go. Not that humans don’t make stupid mistakes – but robotaxis were sold to the public as a mistake-free alternative – well… not yet. BTW: My version of MS Word flags “robotaxi” as a misspelled word. I guess their time has not yet come.

In the meantime, enjoy driving your vehicle. While there are times we wished we could take a nap or read a book when stuck in traffic, driving for many of us is an enjoyable pastime, and we see no reason for robots to have all the fun.