VOYAGE ACQUIRED BY CRUISE
>> Joining forces to deliver a safer, cleaner, and more accessible transportation alternative
Delivering a Self-Driving Service to Millions
I am delighted to share that Voyage is being acquired by Cruise! Together, we will deliver on the promise of self-driving cars — a revolutionary technology that will enable millions to move freely, affordably, and sustainably within their communities.
At Voyage, we’ve been laser-focused on delivering a product that benefits the lives of real people. Voyage’s approach has always been to leverage our limited resources to deliver a product that restores mobility to those who need it most: senior citizens. We’ve made tremendous progress towards this goal, moving countless senior citizens (some as old as 92!) around their communities. Now at Cruise, we are thrilled to have the substantial resources to eventually serve not just senior citizens, but every possible demographic who stands to benefit from self-driving services.
Cruise + Voyage
The self-driving industry is consolidating, and the leaders of a trillion-dollar market are fast emerging. After being intimately involved with the AV industry for the last five years, I can say with certainty that Cruise — with its advanced self-driving technology, unique auto-maker partnerships, and all-electric purpose-built vehicle with no human controls — is poised to be the clear leader. Now, with the addition of the customer-obsessed Voyage team, Cruise is well-positioned to deliver the best self-driving product in the world.
“Kyle Vogt (Cruise President & CTO), Daniel Kan (Cruise CPO), Oliver Cameron (Voyage CEO)”
The World’s Most Advanced Self-Driving Technology
Over the last seven years Cruise has developed the most advanced self-driving capabilities in the world. Today, their vehicles are adept at handling the most complex driving challenges that San Francisco can throw at them, uniquely positioning Cruise to rapidly expand into other complex cities across the world while others go back to the drawing board. Just recently, Cruise reported that in the second half of 2020, their self-driving technology improved to more than 60,000 miles between reportable disengagements. And in the final three months of 2020, Cruise had zero reportable disengagements. Wow!
Voyage’s experience and development of Commander (our self-driving A.I.), Shield (our collision mitigation system), and Telessist (our novel remote assistance solution) will only supercharge Cruise’s goal of superhuman driving performance.
At Voyage, we’ve always believed that to lead this industry requires initial commercialization on either calm roadway or complex roadway, with no middle-ground to be found. Cruise’s long-standing bet on first commercializing on complex roadway — with San Francisco’s streets being 40X more complex than the suburbs — has paid off. Driverless testing — with no one in the driver’s seat — continues on the streets of San Francisco. Soon those same vehicles will be carrying passengers to their destinations anywhere in the city.
A Unique Auto-Maker Partnership
Cruise is the only autonomous vehicle company with the ability to produce fully integrated self-driving vehicles at global manufacturing scale.
Not only is Cruise’s self-driving software uniquely positioned to rapidly scale from San Francisco to dense, urban cities around the world, but Cruise’s self-driving hardware is, too. Cruise’s deep partnerships with GM and Honda deliver the crucial engineering, manufacturing, and safety expertise required to scale a handful of self-driving vehicles to millions and do so with unrivaled cost efficiencies.
As one of the first AV companies to serve customers, Voyage has proven that we can execute on the challenge of delivering sound unit economics in self-driving. Delivering self-driving technology is hard, but building a viable self-driving business is harder. Now at Cruise, we are excited to put these unique advantages to work and deliver the safest, most affordable transportation alternative for everyone.
Author - Oliver Cameron
CRUISE AND GM TEAM UP WITH MICROSOFT TO COMMERCIALIZE SELF-DRIVING VEHICLES
SAN FRANCISCO, DETROIT and REDMOND, Wash. – Cruise and General Motors on Tuesday announced they have entered a long-term strategic relationship with Microsoft to accelerate the commercialization of self-driving vehicles. The companies will bring together their software and hardware engineering excellence, cloud computing capabilities, manufacturing know-how and partner ecosystem to transform transportation to create a safer, cleaner, and more accessible world for everyone.
“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.”
To unlock the potential of cloud computing for self-driving vehicles, Cruise will leverage Azure, Microsoft’s cloud and edge computing platform, to commercialize its unique autonomous vehicle solutions at scale. Microsoft, as Cruise’s preferred cloud provider, will also tap into Cruise’s deep industry expertise to enhance its customer-driven product innovation and serve transportation companies across the globe through continued investment in Azure.
Microsoft will join General Motors, Honda and institutional investors in a combined new equity investment of more than $2 billion in Cruise, bringing the post-money valuation of Cruise to $30 billion.
"Advances in digital technology are redefining every aspect of our work and life, including how we move people and goods,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. “As Cruise and GM's preferred cloud, we will apply the power of Azure to help them scale and make autonomous transportation mainstream.”
“Microsoft is a great addition to the team as we drive toward a future world of zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion,” said GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra. “Microsoft will help us accelerate the commercialization of Cruise’s all-electric, self-driving vehicles and help GM realize even more benefits from cloud computing as we launch 30 new electric vehicles globally by 2025 and create new businesses and services to drive growth.”
In addition, GM will work with Microsoft as its preferred public cloud provider to accelerate its digitization initiatives, including collaboration, storage, artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities. GM will explore opportunities with Microsoft to streamline operations across digital supply chains, foster productivity and bring new mobility services to customers faster.
