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GM Cruise self-driving tech company sees round of layoffs, report says

The company will lay off about 160 employees.

Sean Szymkowski
It all started with Gran Turismo. From those early PlayStation days, Sean was drawn to anything with four wheels. Prior to joining the Roadshow team, he was a freelance contributor for Motor Authority, The Car Connection and Green Car Reports. As for what's in the garage, Sean owns a 2016 Chevrolet SS, and yes, it has Holden badges.
Sean Szymkowski
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It's not clear when we'll see Cruise vehicles pick up public passengers.

Cruise Automation

General Motors' ambitious Cruise Automation division will lay off 8% of its workforce, according to a Bloomberg report on Thursday.

The company, which hired a vast number of new employees last year, will focus the redundancies largely on departments outside of engineering and development.

A Cruise spokesperson said in a statement, "In this time of great change, we're fortunate to have a crystal clear mission and billions in the bank. The actions we took today reflect us doubling down on our engineering work and engineering talent."

According to Bloomberg's count, the company employs 2,000 workers, meaning around 160 of them will be laid off. Those affected will receive transitionary assistance and health care benefits for the remainder of the year, according to an email memo Cruise CEO Dan Ammann sent.

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"These changes are the right choice for the mission," the memo reportedly read.

The self-driving technology division is worth around $19 billion and has received investment from companies like Honda and Japan's SoftBank vision fund. The company showed its purpose-built ride-hailing vehicle, the Origin, in January but hasn't deployed any sort of self-driving ride-hailing service to date. The company originally targeted a date for sometime in 2019 but GM pushed plans back and hasn't set a new target since.

Watch this: Cruise reveals its Origin: An electric, driverless taxi