General Motors shut down Cruise, its $10 billion robotaxi division, in December 2024. Eighteen months later, the company’s chief product officer says GM’s autonomous vehicles will eventually be capable of operating as robotaxis anyway. Sterling Anderson, the former head of Tesla’s Autopilot program, told Business Insider that GM’s personal autonomy strategy and the robotaxi business model are on a collision course.

“Ultimately, the two converge. Our operating region looks identical to the operating region of a robotaxi company,” Anderson said. “The question at that point becomes, ‘Why not offer them in a robotaxi-type application as well?‘”

Anderson’s approach starts with highway driving and works outward. GM is breaking the driving experience into segments, tackling long stretches of motorway first before expanding to arterial roads and urban centres. The idea is that by the time the system handles enough road types, the coverage area will be indistinguishable from what a dedicated robotaxi operator needs.

The foundation for that expansion is Super Cruise, GM’s hands-off, eyes-on driver assistance system. In April, GM said customers had driven one billion hands-free miles with the feature across roughly 750,000 vehicles covering 700,000 miles of North American roads. The company plans to introduce eyes-off highway driving on the Cadillac Escalade IQ in 2028, upgrading Super Cruise from a Level 2+ system to Level 3 using lidar, radar, and cameras.

To build the technology, GM has been quietly reassembling the team it dismantled. The Information reported that the company has rehired approximately 100 former Cruise employees, including senior managers who have returned to their previous roles. GM also hired Ronalee Mann, a former Cruise and Tesla executive, to lead product operations under Anderson, and has recruited engineers from Nvidia, Uber, and Zoox.

The rehiring is a reversal from a painful exit. GM acquired Cruise in 2016 for $581 million and spent more than $10 billion on the division before pulling the plug. The shutdown followed a 2023 incident in San Francisco in which a Cruise robotaxi dragged a pedestrian who had been hit by another vehicle, prompting California regulators to suspend the company’s driverless licence.

Anderson was hired in May 2025 with a $40 million compensation package and has since emerged as a potential successor to CEO Mary Barra. Before GM, he co-founded Aurora Innovation, which launched the first commercial fully driverless trucking service in the US, operating between Houston and Dallas. His appointment signalled that GM was serious about autonomy even after abandoning the dedicated robotaxi model.

The competitive landscape has shifted considerably since Cruise’s collapse. Waymo now delivers more than 500,000 paid rides per week across 10 US metro areas and is deploying its cheaper sixth-generation Ojai robotaxi to scale further. Tesla has launched a limited robotaxi service in Austin using a camera-only approach. Amazon’s Zoox operates roughly 50 robotaxis in San Francisco and Las Vegas.

Legacy automakers are also moving. Hyundai-backed Motional relaunched a robotaxi service with Uber in Las Vegas in March and plans to offer fully driverless rides there by the end of 2026. Rivian signed a $1.25 billion deal with Uber in March to deploy up to 50,000 autonomous R2 vehicles across 25 cities by 2031, starting in San Francisco and Miami in 2028.

GM’s strategy is a slower, lower-risk path than building a standalone robotaxi fleet. By embedding autonomy in personal vehicles first, the company avoids the enormous capital expenditure of operating its own ride-hailing network while still accumulating the driving data and regulatory approvals it would need to enter that market later. The one billion Super Cruise miles already driven give GM a dataset that few competitors outside Tesla and Waymo can match.

Whether the approach works depends on execution speed. GM is targeting eyes-off highway driving in 2028, the same year Rivian’s autonomous R2s are expected to start carrying Uber passengers. “If that’s where the world goes, our autonomous vehicles will be capable of being robotaxis as well,” Anderson said.

Tesla has started rolling out Full Self-Driving (Supervised) version 14.3.4, and one of its standout additions makes the end of a trip feel notably more polished. The update introduces a new dialog box that appears as the car approaches its destination, showing the driver exactly how it plans to park before it begins the maneuver.

A robotaxi-style arrival experience

The new prompt surfaces on the display when FSD is nearing a destination and informs the driver of the intended parking method, whether that’s a street spot, a parking lot, or curbside. Tesla owner Devin Olsen, who shared footage of the feature on X, described the behavior as feeling “100% like being in a robotaxi or Waymo,” noting that it removes the guesswork from the final stretch of an FSD-assisted trip.

FSD V14.3.4 new behaviour when arriving at Destination.

The car now pops up a new dialog box and indicates how the car is going to park when you are arriving at your destination. This feels 100% like being in a robotaxi or Waymo – I think I love it? It makes the whole FSD… pic.twitter.com/WWjaF3qP6E

— Devin Olsen (@DevinOlsenn) June 12, 2026

Elon Musk confirmed the rollout on X, and according to Tesla’s official release notes for version 14.3.4, parking options now display on the map when arriving at a destination. The parking-at-destination capability itself isn’t new. It was included in FSD (Supervised) version 14.1. Version 14.3.4 introduces the dialog box with the parking options, which is a welcome quality-of-life improvement.

Global expansion continues

The update arrives as Tesla’s FSD rollout broadens internationally. Tesla officially confirmed in May that FSD (Supervised) is available in China, listing it alongside the US, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Lithuania, and the Netherlands as active markets. In Europe, the system has also received regulatory approval in Estonia, Denmark, and Belgium.

FSD Supervised is now available in:
– United States
– Canada
– Mexico
– Puerto Rico
– China
– Australia
– New Zealand
– South Korea
– The Netherlands
– Lithuania

— Tesla (@Tesla) May 20, 2026

The destination dialog is a small but tangible step in making supervised autonomy feel less opaque. As FSD expands to new markets and drivers encounter it for the first time, surfacing the car’s intentions before it acts will be important for building trust, something that Tesla has struggled to earn even among its own AI trainers.

In 2025, one in four cars sold anywhere in the world was electric. However, in the US, that figure is closer to one in ten, and it is not moving in the right direction. 

The falling EV prices globally have pushed sales to record levels. American buyers, on the other hand, are marching through 2026 with fewer incentives, higher prices, and a shrinking selection of affordable options. 

How bad is the EV situation in the US?

The IEA’s Global EV Outlook 2026, released May 20, puts the global picture in sharp relief.

Electric car sales exceeded 20 million units in 2025, growing 20% from 2024. On average, EV battery prices dropped 8% due to lower raw material costs and wider adoption of lithium iron phosphate chemistry. 

Contrary to the global trends, US sales went the other way, slightly down year-on-year. But it is when you look at the last quarter of 2025, which recorded 45% lower new EV sales than the same period in 2024, that you realize how grim the picture is. 

Why is the US falling behind on EV affordability?

The biggest reason behind the declining sales is the recent policy changes. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act eliminated tax credits for new and used EV purchases after September 2025. It also removed penalties for automakers that fail to meet fuel efficiency standards, essentially reducing the industry’s financial incentive to prioritize EVs. 

Then there’s the 100% important duties on Chinese EVs, even the affordable ones, which are among the world’s most affordable and dominate sales across Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Europe. These are practically unavailable to American buyers. 

Finally, it’s the preference for large vehicles that is keeping prices out of reach for many buyers. The report mentions that more than 85% of EV models available in the US are SUVs or other large vehicles. These come with bigger batteries, which cost more, pushing the average EV price higher. 

The US seems to be doubling down on premium and heavy EVs, but in other markets like Europe, small EVs are expanding rapidly. Vietnam, where EV penetration exceeded 40% in 2025 driven by VinFast’s affordable small models, illustrates exactly what accessible pricing can achieve. 

The impact is also visible is the Big Three’s EV strategy

Faced with slower-than-expected consumer demand, shifting federal policy, and profitability pressures, the Big Three automakers have already scaled back their fully electric vehicle plans. Instead, they’re pivoting toward plug-in hybrids, traditional gas-electric hybrids, and ICE trucks.

For instance, Ford scrapped its three-row electric SUV, absorbing a $400 million write-down. The company has also pulled the plug on its all-electric F-150 Lightning. Instead, it is reinventing it as a range-extended electric vehicle (EREV), that will provide over 700 miles of range.

Automaker	Previous Ambition	Current Strategy
Ford	Aggressive EV scaling (Three-Row EV, T3 Truck)	Scrapped 3-row EV; hybrid options for all gas models
General Motors	All-electric lineup focus	Reduced EV production; reintroducing plug-in hybrids (PHEVs)
Stellantis	Rapid transition to pure BEV platforms	Focus on gas-extended EVs (Ramcharger) and 4xe plug-in hybrids

General Motors has also reduced its short-term EV production target, abandoning its goal of reaching a one-million-unit EV manufacturing capacity. The automaker is redirecting its manufacturing capacity to prioritize the production of gas-powered trucks and SUVs. 

Stellantis is also focusing on multi-energy vehicles. While the IEA report highlights how consumers are responding to the less favorable scenario in the EV market, the Big Three’s pivot away from pure EVs reflects the shift in demand.