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Cruise, the San Francisco-based robotaxi developer backed by General Motors, is getting a financial and technological boost from MicrosoftThe tech giant is leading a new $2 billion funding round for Cruise, which also includes backing from GM, Honda and institutional investors, and is making its cloud computing platform Azure available for the company’s developers. With the new investment round, Cruise estimates its valuation is now $30 billion.
“Advances in digital technology are redefining every aspect of our work and life, including how we move people and goods,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement. “As Cruise and GM'spreferred cloud, we will apply the power of Azure to help them scale and make autonomous transportation mainstream.”
The new partnership with Microsoft strengthens Cruise’s push to get its autonomous electric Origin vans on the road as it vies with similarly well-funded competitors including Alphabet’s Waymo and Amazon’sZoox to create a viable service in urban markets. Still, the exact timing of when any of the companies will be able to launch large-scale commercial operations remains unclear.
“Our mission to bring safer, better and more affordable transportation to everyone isn’t just a tech race–it’s also a trust race,” said Cruise CEO Dan Ammann. “Microsoft, as the gold standard in the trustworthy democratization of technology, will be a force multiplier for us as we commercialize our fleet of self-driving, all-electric shared vehicles.”
Makes sense. The largest obstacle to properly working self-driving cars is software, and it is exactly the area where most car manufacturers struggle.
I really struggle to understand why self-driving cars are suddenly the problem we need to solve right now. Surely there are more important things...
This’ll floop hard
Tesla should consider building these robotaxis, could be cheaper to produce than a model 3s on their ride-sharing network. elonmusk , with your experience building complex cars like ModelX, this should be easy for Tesla to build millions of these
We’re getting close to Johnny cab from total recall
Microsoft haciendo coches. A ver cuantas ventanas se te cierran andando a 100kmph.
Just more unemployed.
RKSlaughterFTC FTC allowed Auto companies to change dealer names & void 24-36 month warranties. consumerfraud coverup FTC 2021-00257 IRS_CI Destroyed records 2020-007235 TIGTA TRN-2009-0433 & TRN-2010-0201