- General
- October 3, 2018
- 6 minutes read
Honda takes $750 million stake in GM Cruise and commits $2 billion more for new autonomous vehicle project
GM Cruise General Motors’ self-driving unit Cruise has now teamed up with auto manufacturer Honda on a new autonomous vehicle…
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| GM Cruise |
General Motors’ self-driving unit Cruise has now teamed up with auto manufacturer Honda on a new autonomous vehicle project which pursues a shared goal of transforming mobility through large-scale deployment of autonomous technology.
Honda will collaborate and work closely with Cruise and GM to fund and build a purpose-built autonomous vehicle which Cruise can make use of for a vast variety of use cases and can be manufactured at high volume for global deployment.
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| GM Cruise |
The 3 firms will also explore global opportunities for commercial deployment of the Cruise self-driving network. Honda is taking a $750 stake in Cruise which values the firm at $14.6 billion post-money, quite a jump from its most previous $11.5 billion valuation after a $2.25 billion Softbank commitment May this year.
In addition to the equity stake, Honda will also contribute $2 billion towards the project over 12 years which brings the total commitment to an enormous $2.75 billion.
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| GM Cruise |
“This is the logical next step in General Motors and Honda’s relationship, given our joint work on electric vehicles, and our close integration with Cruise,” General Motors Chairman and CEO Mary Barra said in a statement. “Together, we can provide Cruise with the world’s best design, engineering and manufacturing expertise, and global reach to establish them as the leader in autonomous vehicle technology – while they move to deploy self-driving vehicles at scale.”
“With the backing of General Motors, SoftBank and now Honda, Cruise is deeply resourced to accomplish our mission to safely deploy autonomous technology across the globe,” Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt also stated. “The Honda partnership paves the way for massive scale by bringing a beautiful, efficient, and purpose-built vehicle to our network of shared autonomous vehicles.” More details on the benefits of the partnership to Cruise can be found here.
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| GM Cruise |
Cruise has come a long way from its start 5 years ago after a successful graduation from renowned startup accelerator Y Combinator, Acquired in 2016 for $581 million by General Motors, Cruise has grown to be a key part of the company’s operations while also taking in major investments from both General Motors , Softbank and Honda which has now amounted to over $6 billion in investment commitments.
