In December 2022, Cruise Automation announced the launch of its fully driverless robotaxi service in Austin. This is the first expansion beyond robotaxi launch in San Francisco this summer by Cruise Automation. It plans to launch its fully-driverless commercial service in more cities in 2023. This month, Uber also announced that it has launched its first robotaxi for commercial use in Las Vegas. Cruise Automation was acquired by General Motors (GM) in 2016 for an undisclosed amount.

"The idea of the three-box solution has its roots in Hindu spirituality," explains Govindarajan. "The ancient scriptures portray life as a continuous cycle of preservation, destruction, and creation. Every entity in the universe invariably passes through these three phases." We've seen how the principles of the three-box solution, inspired by 5,000-year-old texts, are relevant for companies today. To build immortal companies, you must master this preservation, destruction, and creation cycle. "It's a mission that's never fully accomplished because change is the only constant," concludes Govindarajan. You can watch my full interview with Professor Vijay Govindarajan on how the three-box solution helps address the biggest challenges in building an AI-powered organization.

Signs of very early-stage commercialization are emerging from the corporate science projects that want to remove human drivers from vehicles. Alphabet's Waymo seems furthest ahead with its "robotaxi" project in the suburbs of Phoenix Customers used to have to sign a nondisclosure agreement to hail a ride with no backup driver, but Waymo opened the service up in October. Motional, a $4 billion joint venture between South Korean car giant Hyundai and automotive supplier Aptiv, said last month that it will take safety drivers out of its taxis that operate on the Lyft LYFT 3.77% platform around Las Vegas "in the coming months." Cruise Automation, the driverless-car business controlled by General Motors, GM 1.92% has said it would remove backup drivers from its cars by the year-end. Cruise runs vehicles around busy San Francisco, but without passengers or cargo.

Self-driving car company Cruise Automation is rushing to create a new autonomous vehicle with the help of one of the largest names in the automotive industry. Honda said it will invest $2.75 billion into Cruise's autonomous vehicle operations over the next 12 years, an infusion that arrives several months after the Japanese firm SoftBank announced a $2.25 billion investment in the company. Both investments bring the four-year-old company's valuation to a whopping $14.6 billion, General Motors said in a news release Wednesday. Cruise Automation -- which is already building a fleet of autonomous vehicles that could hit American streets as early as next year -- is a subsidiary of GM. The Detroit automaker's stock was up nearly 2 percent Wednesday.

Ford made a surprise announcement this week of a further reorganization of its business as the automaker prepares for the long-term transition to automated mobility services. All of the various groups within Ford that are working on the development and deployment of automated vehicles are being subsumed into Ford Autonomous Vehicles LLC (AVLLC). AVLLC is for now at least a wholly owned subsidiary of Ford Motor Company with Sherif Marakby as its CEO and Marcy Klevorn as chairman of its board of directors. The reason given for the move is enable a faster decision making process within an organization that is wholly focused on deployment of this new technology. By taking some of the lines of reporting out of the larger corporate organization and condensing it within this smaller subset, it is possible that there will be less battling for resources with other priorities.

Computers may be poised to take control of driving in the future, but humans will be backing them for some time yet. Tech giants Waymo and Uber Technologies Inc., auto makers General Motors Co. GM -0.85% and Nissan Motor Co. NSANY -1.16%, and upstarts like Phantom Auto are all developing ways for people to remotely assist their autonomous vehicles during complicated driving situations. "You're going to want as many different backup systems as possible, and human beings performing remote operations is one of those," said Anthony Foxx, former U.S. Transportation Secretary and adviser to venture-capital firm Autotech Ventures. Having human backup will likely help alleviate concerns that regulators and insurance companies have about the new technology, he added. Driverless cars, using sensors, cameras and digital maps, tend to navigate the world based on road markings and rules of the road.

GM Cruise Holdings was set up recently and its assets include Cruise Automation, which heads up GM's self-driving vehicle development and is based in San Francisco. The No. 1 U.S. automaker - which views electric and autonomous vehicles as the keystones of future transport - has focused on rolling out self-driving cars since its estimated $1 billion acquisition of startup Cruise Automation in early 2016.

There are big "leased" signs in the windows of the former Classic Car Club space at the corner of Broome, but Jack Resnick & Sons, which owns 250 Hudson, understandably said that it couldn't share any information. When I poked around elsewhere, I was told General Motors was involved, so I figured it was something akin to Cadillac's marketing boondoggle up the street. But then I looked into the Department of Buildings paperwork for the space, which lists the tenant as GM Cruise LLC. "GM Cruise LLC, commonly referred to as Cruise or Cruise Automation, is an American driverless car company headquartered in San Francisco," according to Wikipedia. "In March 2016, General Motors acquired Cruise for an undisclosed amount, although reports have placed the number from'north of $500 million,' to $580 million, to over $1 billion."

Cruise Automation wants to make self-driving cars in New York City a reality as soon as 2018. The self-driving car wing of General Motors has announced plans to test Chevy Bolts in an area of Manhattan spanning five square miles, beginning as early as next year. Previously, the company has evaluated how its vehicles perform in an urban setting by testing them out on the streets of San Francisco. In May 2017, New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo detailed a one-year pilot program that would give automakers the opportunity to apply for permission to test self-driving cars in New York starting in 2018. Cruise Automation has submitted a request, which is expected to be granted, according to a report from CNN. Pedestrians will likely pose the greatest challenge for the Bolts let loose on the streets of Manhattan.

It looks like New York City will be hosting its first test of fully autonomous vehicles very soon and surprisingly, they're not from Waymo or Uber. Instead, General Motors and Cruise Automation have submitted the first application for sustained testing and are aiming to do so in Manhattan. New York state only recently opened its roads up to self-driving vehicles, joining California, Arizona and Pennsylvania in allowing tests of the technology. Governor Andrew Cuomo announced in May that the DMV had begun taking applications for said tests on New York's roads and GM is the first in line. In order to be approved, companies like GM will have to cover each vehicle with a $5 million insurance policy, reimburse state police for any costs that come with overseeing the tests and keep a person in the driver's seat at all times.