A Cruise self-driving car, owned by General Motors Corp, is seen outside the company’s headquarters in San Francisco, California, US, on September 26, 2018, where most of its testing takes place. Photo taken on September 26, 2018. Reuters/Heather Somerville/File Photo Get licensing rights
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 18 (Reuters) – The CEO of Cruise, General Motors’ robot taxi unit, apologized on Saturday for the company’s position following a crash that led to the company’s self-driving vehicle operations being halted during a safety review. I went.
In an email to employees reviewed by Reuters, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt also said the company would make a new tender offering to allow employees to sell shares, just two days after canceling an earlier offering.
“I am sorry that under my leadership we have lost our way and this has had a deep personal impact on many cruisers,” Vogt wrote in an email to employees.
“As CEO, I take responsibility for Cruise’s situation today. There are no excuses, and no doubt about what happened. We need to double down on safety, transparency, and community engagement.”
Vogt also said the company’s approach to working with regulators, the press and the public “must improve.”
Cruz said Thursday that employees will not be able to sell their shares in the buyback program in the current quarter as it undergoes a compensation review.
But Vogt said in his Saturday email that some employees may sell a limited number of shares in a one-time opportunity, citing workers’ concerns over tax obligations.
The unlisted Cruise unit introduced an equity program designed to attract and retain talent in 2022, allowing current and former employees to sell their vested equity to GM and other investors every quarter.
The suspension of the program was reacted by some employees, who said they would face a heavy tax burden on shares that vested on October 15 at very high valuations.
Canceling the program after halting Cruise operations helped GM cut costs.
Vogt said, referring to restricted stock units, a type of equity compensation. “We have heard your concerns and are developing a plan to conduct a new tender offering that would provide some RSU liquidity to reduce potential tax liabilities,” Vogt said, referring to restricted stock units, a type of equity compensation. Will do.”
Vogt did not provide any details on the new proposal.
One frustrated employee told Reuters on Saturday: “I’m glad they realized they needed to fix the situation.”
A spokesman for Cruz had no immediate comment Saturday.
In November, the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) ordered Cruise to remove its driverless cars from state roads, calling the vehicles a risk to the public and saying the company had misrepresented the safety of its technology. .
The regulator said Cruise did not initially disclose all video footage of the Oct. 2 crash, which involved another vehicle and a pedestrian struck by one of Cruise’s self-drive taxis.
Cruz has said that he showed the entire video of the crash to California DMV officials several times and provided a copy to the authorities.
Cruise has suspended all robot taxi services in the United States and says it needs to win back public trust with a full safety review of its vehicles and self-drive technology.
Reporting by Greg Bensinger and Hyunjoo Jin in San Francisco; Additional reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Tom Hogg
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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