Cruise Origin predicts a future in which drivers are eliminated from electric vehicles.
While outside, rainy weather and rush hour crowds tested the patience and attention span of drivers, indoors near the company's San Francisco headquarters, Cruise unveiled its fourth generation of driverless vehicles.
Cruise CEO Dan Ammann was very direct when introducing the company's next generation of connected, autonomous, shared, and electrified vehicles. It's self-driving. It's all electric. It's shared. This is not a concept, this is a production vehicle," he said of Origin, a GM-based people mover for up to six passengers.
But behind the bluntness, there is a more nuanced message. Cruise offers a more consistent experience, saves energy, and saves users more money than ride-hailing companies like Lyft and Uber. And Origin is the platform to make it happen.
With next-generation sensor sets (details undisclosed) and an electric propulsion system shared at a high level with GM's next-generation BEV3 electric vehicle architecture, Origin is built to take advantage of economies of scale, easy hardware upgrades, and an expected 1 million+ mile range It is built to have a useful life expectancy of more than one million miles.
"We're leveraging all the resources that GM's new electric platform has to offer," said Chief Engineer Jason Fisher, confirming that there is one motor on the rear axle.
It has full Level 5 autonomous driving capabilities, with redundant steering and braking controls built in from the start. There is no driver's seat, no steering wheel, no pedals, no wipers, no rearview mirrors. Wherever it is used, occupants are not expected to focus on the road ahead.
Now Cruise is trying to get to its roots, so to speak, by running a Chevrolet Bolt EV-based third-generation vehicle on the streets of San Francisco 24 hours a day, seven days a week and testing it with a ride-sharing service available to any Cruise employee.
Founded in 2013, part of GM since 2016, and with Honda as an investor in 2018, Cruise says it is already so smooth and safe that it could stretch the chaos of San Francisco streets from coast to coast without a fender bender.
Being a fully electric vehicle, rather than a hybrid like other autonomous vehicle projects, is one of Cruise's central goals, important for saving energy and saving users money.
"The first thing we do is get rid of the whole fossil fuel burning thing," says Aman.
"Because no matter how advanced the cars get, drivers will always be tired, distracted, frustrated, and rushed.
Cruz claims that the new generation of sensor sets, software, and hardware will all have "superhuman" capabilities; he assumes that Origin will have several generations of sensor technology; and he expects the new generation of sensors to be more efficient than the previous one. This means better pricing, an experience that gets better over time, and less waste.
Origin will be made of steel and assembled in the U.S. at GM's existing plants, company officials confirmed.
Cruz has been working on the vehicle for three years. Fischer said, "There's a maturity in this car that we've never seen in the industry that we're very proud of."
Up close, the Origin looks very large, but Cruze officials say it is all a visual trick based on having such a large cabin. The side doors are sliding, allowing it to coexist with bicycles and scooters.
The Origin is capable of highway travel, Aman said, but declined to say how fast or how long it would last.
On a larger scale, Cruise expects to be able to build the Origin for roughly half the cost of producing a conventional electric SUV today. And the Cruise Origin would be used far more of the time than a privately owned vehicle.
Aman said the investment in Origin will give the company the flexibility to develop vehicles for a variety of uses without being owned by a company other than Cruise. They will all be offered as part of the service.
Origin will be a global vehicle and could become a global service, but the U.S. will be a priority in the short term.
"We are working hard with NHTSA and the Department of Transportation on FMVSS and will deploy these vehicles on a large scale once they are deemed safe. We are working very well with NHTSA and DOT leadership to begin removing some of the barriers."
The vehicles will rely on cellular networks, perhaps even in areas with brief power outages. Cruz's focus at this stage is to establish and prove it first in a small demonstration area.
"If we are serious about improving life in cities, we need to get Cruise Origins into the hands of huge numbers of people," said Mr. Baker. And it won't happen unless we offer a very simple proposition: a better experience at a lower price than what we are paying today to get around here in San Francisco."
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