In light of such difficult economics, what made robotaxi the dominant go-to-market strategy for autonomous vehicles? To understand the reasons why, let’s consider the history of AVs. The idea of autonomous vehicles has been around for decades.

Automotive giant General Motors announced Tuesday that it would be pulling funding from its robotaxi firm Cruise, though it gestured at future plans to continue developing self-driving cars.

While the world's richest man is going all in with a robotaxi, General Motors has decided to pull the plug on its embryonic autonomous taxis. GM has announced that it will stop shoveling money into Cruise, the robotaxi subsidiary that never managed to make a dime. Instead of taxis, GM plans to focus on autonomous driving for personal vehicles.