According to people familiar with the matter, cruise, a self driving start-up controlled by GM, will cooperate with the brightdrop electric van business under GM, and the two sides plan to jointly develop self driving distribution vehicles. These insiders, who declined to be identified, said that cruise and brightdrop have started early work, and may eventually integrate the auto drive system into the electric van, and may create an driverless package delivery service.
The project is likely to become GM's next autonomous driving project. Currently cruise mainly focuses on the commercialization of autonomous taxi business and generates revenue through it.
People familiar with the matter said that despite the initial work, cruise is still using most of its resources for the self driving taxi project. After the business is established, cruise will start to pay more attention to other self driving projects. The company has been providing free taxi service without security officers in San Francisco and hopes to get the approval of the state government to start providing toll service next month.
Spokesmen for cruise and GM declined to comment. Brightdrop spokesperson Daniel Roberts said in an e-mail: "at present, we have no news to announce our cooperation with cruise, but we have been exploring new ways to create innovative and efficient delivery solutions for brightdrop customers."
GM has high expectations for cruise and brightdrop. Its CEO Mary Barra said in October that the company is embarking on a plan to double revenue to $280 billion by 2030. Among the expected revenue growth, cruise aims to contribute about $50 billion, while brightdrop's electric van business aims to contribute about $10 billion.
In addition to the autonomous taxi, cruise is also developing its origin autonomous vehicle and focusing on the autonomous distribution cooperation with Wal Mart. Origin is a ferry car that can accommodate 4 to 6 people. It is designed for sharing travel services.
Other self driving companies are also trying to deliver services. Waymo, a subsidiary of alphabet, has been trying to use its self driving technology on freight trucks. Argo, a joint venture between Ford and Volkswagen AI also announced a pilot plan last year to distribute orders to Wal Mart customers in selected cities.