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The consolidation among developers of self-driving vehicles continues: The GM subsidiary Cruise takes over competitor Voyage, which operates robotaxis in several senior citizen settlements in the USA. Voyage announced this on Monday.
“As one of the first companies to serve customers with autonomous vehicles, Voyage has proven that we can master the challenge of realizing sustainable economy in self-driving”, writes Voyage founder Oliver Cameron, “Delivering self-driving technology is difficult, but building a viable self-driving business is more difficult.” With Cruise, Voyage is now supposed to create the most affordable transport alternative for everyone.
Cruise Origin
This probably includes a switch from vehicles from Fiat Chrysler’s factories to cars from GM. Since the end of 2020, Cruise has been testing self-driving cars called Cruise Origin in San Francisco without a safety driver. Cruise has money and well-known partners. In addition to the mother company GM, the investors also include Honda. Microsoft has also got into the robot taxi company General Motors’.
Apparently only part of the approximately 60-strong Voyage workforce will continue to be employed: “I am thrilled that important members of our Voyage team will be able to use their extensive experience in vehicle development to influence Cruise Origin,” said Cameron . He does not reveal the purchase price.
A brisk round of acquisitions
According to the Investment Monitor there have been thousands of driverless acquisitions in the past five years. In Germany alone, there were 457 takeovers with a total value of 161 billion US dollars. There were 794 acquisitions ($ 71 billion) in China and 503 ($ 86 billion) in the UK. And in the United States, the total value recorded is as high as $ 219 billion.
Prominent deals included the takeover of Zoox by Amazon and Hyundai’s partnership with Yandex. Uber had to throw in the towel in the race to develop self-driving cars. The scandal company has given up the division for self-driving cars.
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