GM’s CEO Mary Barra recently took her first ride in a self-driving car which was shown off in a YouTube video on Cruise’s official channel. Of course, Cruise is owned by GM and is its self-driving car service which also operates a robotaxi service in limited parts of the US. “Last week our friends from Detroit took a midnight ride straight over the moon,” said the message on the video.
Barra was visibly impressed by the flawless nature of the ride which was her first one. The ride took place in San Francisco, not Detroit which is the home of GM as Cruise operates its service right now in California. Barra rode is. Chevrolet Bolt EV named Tostada with Cruise Co-founder, interim CEO, and CTO Kyle Vogt.
Both rode in the back seat of the car with the vehicle driving itself. Barra noted while she knew this was always going to happen, experiencing it for the first time felt surreal. In another Bolt EV, GM’s President Mark Reuss called the ride mind-blowing as he was a combined by GM’s Vice President of communications Craig Buchholz.
Cruise is one of the pioneers of autonomous car technology alongside Waymo. It is closely working with GM towards developing a commercial autonomous vehicle for personal use which GM estimates will launch by the end of the decade.