Car stuff (public number: chedongxi)
The author | Alice
Edit the | Juice
According to foreign media "Forbes", Kyle Vogt, co-founder and interim CEO of Cruise, a self-driving company under GM, said that Cruise is developing in the direction of starting commercial operations, and everything is going well.
Vogt told Forbes in his first interview after the management adjustment: "We have a great plan, and this plan will last for many years. We have the full support not only of cruise's board of directors, but also of GM's leadership and board of directors. We are happy with where we are at the moment. "Cruise's mission or goals haven't changed, and the company is moving forward along the way.
Not long ago, GM President Mark Reuss said in an interview with CNBC that under the latest interim leadership of Cruise founder Kyle Vogt, GM and subsidiary Cruise are now "completely aligned" (on business plans).
▲ Cruise interim CEO Kyle Vogt
In 2016, GM acquired cruise, a self-driving company, and Ammann, then president of GM, took charge of the acquisition and later served as Cruise's CEO. Cruise co-founder Vogt served as CTO and president of the company.
Just last December, Dan Ammann, then Cruise CEO, was forced to leave due to disagreements over IPO timing with GM CEO Mary Barra, after which Vogt became interim CEO.
Previously, Che Dong had compiled the bloomberg report on the more than a decade of internal game between former Cruise CEO Dan Ammann and GM CEO Mary Barra, and the article described the detailed development of the conflict between the two sides. Refer to the previous report "General Iron Lady, killed the CEO of automatic driving".
First, the dual-purpose vehicle Origin will be put into operation next year
In the interview, Vogt said that Cruise's business plan is currently going well.
Starting next year, Cruise will add dedicated electric Origin vans supplied by GM to its fleet. The model will maximize revenue by acting as a dual-purpose vehicle throughout the day, a Robotaxi during peak periods, and then switching to grocery and food delivery vehicles when demand for rides drops.
▲Cruise's driverless vehicle Origin
"As demand for Robotaxi increases, there is usually an morning and evening peak in the day." Vogt said, "Late at night or in other free time, we plan to convert these Origin models into vehicles delivered for groceries. ”
The aim of the move is to make the overall structural cost of Cruise's services much lower than for businesses that only do deliveries or only Robotaxi, as fleets get higher utilization, Vogt said.
Last November, Cruise demonstrated a cargo module that provides quick access to origin cargo holds. The module is equipped with 8 insulated individual lockers for storing groceries and food ordered by customers. Vogt notes that the module can slide in and out in 5 minutes and turn shared cars into delivery vehicles.
▲ Cruise employees show Offin's freight module
It is worth noting that the car is not equipped with a steering wheel, throttle and brake pedals, and the manufacturing cost is relatively low. It is reported that the Origin model can be run on the road for most of the day, which is also the key to cruise's business model.
Cruise received approval from the California Authority last year to offer paid self-driving services in parts of the San Francisco Bay Area. Previously, Vogt and GM CEO Mary Barra had said that they had taken cruise's driverless car, and the driverless car currently operating in San Francisco was a modified Chevrolet Bolt hatchback.
GM CEO Mary Barra shared her ride experience on Twitter
Second, fully promote the business plan Three initiatives escort
To drive efficient business operations, Cruise has undertaken three initiatives. First, reduce its operating costs through a number of means. The second is to make sure that the car lasts long enough.
Vogt said: "For us, the success of car sharing is somewhat similar to things like collected rides, so that you basically earn more per mile, which is really important. "Origin itself has a low structural cost and is designed to have a useful life of around 1 million miles (about 1.61 million kilometers).
The third is utilization, which allows the car to run as much as possible throughout the day. The high utilization of the Cruise fleet is key to it. Last January, the company recruited former Delta Executive Gil West as its COO. Two other airline executives — Anthony Gregory, who worked at Southwest Airlines and former Virgin Atlantic COO Phil Maher — were added as their vice presidents of market development and central operations.
▲Cruise COO Gil West
In an interview with Forbes, West said Cruise's focus on leveraging aviation industry veterans stems from the similarities between the industry and the emerging self-driving business.
"The aviation model is important, and its methods and processes have evolved over the last 100 years. This completely overlaps with what we're doing in the field of autonomous driving. Airlines are operations-intensive, which is also the goal of Cruise, and high-tech equipment (airplanes and self-driving cars) is designed for a certain purpose. West noted.
Unlike other players in the self-driving space, Cruise's cars can both deliver and carry people. For example, Nuro is preparing to have self-driving cars only deliver delivery services, not passenger rides. Although Waymo uses Chrysler Grand Jaylon hybrids in both the Waymo One and Waymo Via services in Arizona, the passenger and delivery services are separate.
At the end of the interview, Vogt did not discuss issues related to the Cruise IPO with reporters, but he expressed gratitude to Dan Ammann for his years of work.
"I learned a lot from Dan when I was CEO and he had a lot of deep automotive and finance experience, which was really helpful and that experience allowed me to better manage the company in the transition period now." he said.
Conclusion: Cruise driverless commercial prospects are broad
With the rapid development of smart cars, more and more players have entered the game of autonomous driving, and competition in the autonomous driving industry has intensified.
Unmanned driving technology requires a large number of sensors and computing software, its unit cost is huge, the cost of each vehicle may be as high as 300,000 to 400,000 US dollars (about 1.91 million yuan to 2.55 million yuan), high research and development costs, cost recovery is a huge challenge for current autonomous driving companies.
Cruise, as the leading player in this field, has obtained an official commercial license, and next year, Cruise's dual-purpose car Origin joins the fleet, which can solve consumer car problems during the daytime morning and evening rush hours, and other times can also carry out cargo delivery work. In this case, the cost of its autonomous vehicles can be quickly recovered, in addition to obtaining considerable benefits for them.