8:24 PM UTC – November 20, 2023
(Reuters) – General Motors’ (GM.N) Cruise co-founder and chief product officer Daniel Kan has resigned, the company told Reuters on Monday, a day after Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt quit.
A spokesperson for Cruise said Kan announced his resignation in a Slack message. The company and Kan offered no other details.
In his message to employees, seen by Reuters, Kan noted that Cruise had been serving 10,000 rides per week. “I know Cruise will achieve that again soon,” he wrote.
The new exit comes at a tumultuous time for self-driving taxi maker Cruise, which is undergoing a safety review of its U.S. fleet, which led Vogt to resign on Sunday.
Vogt, 38, offered little in the way of explanation, stating simply “I have resigned from my position” in an email to staff viewed by Reuters on Sunday.
Cruise’s woes are also a setback for an industry dependent on public trust and the cooperation of regulators. The unit had in recent months touted ambitious plans to expand to more cities, offering fully autonomous taxi rides.
Vogt’s resignation came after GM and the board at Cruise increased their scrutiny of its leadership.
Cruise is retrenching after an October accident that ended with one of Cruise’s self-driving taxis dragging a pedestrian. Cruise pulled all its vehicles from testing in the United States to conduct a safety review.
Kan didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
Vogt over the weekend apologized to staff for the company’s continuing troubles. “I take responsibility for the situation Cruise is in today,” he wrote in an email. “There are no excuses, and there is no sugar coating what has happened.”
GM shuffled leadership at Cruise including naming general counsel Craig Glidden as chief administrative officer, bringing in a third-party safety officer and appointing co-presidents.
Autonomous vehicle regulation is still nascent and largely overseen state by state. U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told reporters on Monday the federal government will do everything it can using existing regulatory powers to ensure that Cruise and other autonomous vehicles are deployed safely.
Reporting by Greg Bensinger in San Francisco; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama; Editing by Chris Reese and Cynthia Osterman