Cruise’s Kyle Vogt was on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2016, and the CEO of the self-driving car startup that GM acquired earlier this year shared some updates about the company’s progress under its new owner. Vogt said that access to GM’s considerable resources has helped it accelerate its efforts.
GM previously revealed that it was testing cars on roads in San Francisco and in Arizona, but Vogt said that there are now around 30 self-driving test cars in operation across both markets. This marks the first time Cruise has given any indication about the size of its fleet.
Besides the test vehicles, which are Chevy Bolts equipped with the necessary sensor array and on-board processing, and manned by a safety crew, Vogt noted that over 8 million vehicles with on-board cameras through GM’s OnStar service are in operation, which provides a considerable competitive advantage in terms of building a usable data set to help informal Cruise’s self-driving car smarts.
Vogt also said that the team has grown from around 40 to over 100 employees since the acquisition, and that they’re looking to keep growing quickly.