Cruise, the self-driving vehicle unit majority owned by General Motors Co., plans to expand its robotaxi service to Houston and Dallas.
The company will start in Houston in the next few days, following by Dallas shortly after, Chief Executive Officer Kyle Vogt said Wednesday in a tweet. Cruise initially will offer rides to employees and have a safety driver, then open it to the public once the service is established. When the cars are truly driverless, Cruise will charge fares, a spokeswoman said.
The autonomous vehicle company has been pushing to build a business with its self-driving technology and get to $1 billion in revenue in 2025. Cruise has been charging fares in San Francisco since June of last year. It has also expanded to Austin and is laying the groundwork in Phoenix.
It’s a high-stakes bet for GM, which spends about $2 billion a year developing the technology. Cruise has targeted bringing in $50 billion in revenue by 2030 and plans to be a key part of GM’s goal of doubling revenue to $240 billion by then.
Cruise did not say when it would pull the safety driver from its car in Houston and charge fares. In Austin, the driver was removed in December, just a few months after service launched. The company has 300 cars across three cities and runs 234 concurrently. Most of the cars are in San Francisco.
