General Motors cranks IoT strategy up a gear with Cruise acquisition

General Motors has announced the acquisition of autonomous vehicle start-up Cruise Automation, giving a boost to its IoT strategy.

Cruise is a driverless car specialist start up and GM says the acquisition, estimated to be in the region of $1 billion by Forbes, will flesh out its growing Autonomous Vehicle Department; recently formed and due to encompass the entire Cruise team.  While the deal is still subject to customary closing conditions, a regulatory veto would appear unlikely at this stage.

According to GM, Cruise has moved rapidly to testing phase of its driverless car technology on the notoriously tricky and undulating streets of San Francisco, since formation in 2013. Naturally, it is duly excited over the prospect of realising the dream of the self-driving car, appropriately reflected in the comments of GM President Dan Ammann.

“Fully autonomous vehicles can bring our customers enormous benefits in terms of greater convenience, lower cost and improved safety for their daily mobility needs,” he said.

Mutual platitudes were exchanged as founder of Cruise, Kyle Vogt, expressed his excitement at the agreement to become part of GM.

“GM’s commitment to autonomous vehicles is inspiring, deliberate and completely in line with our vision to make transportation safer and more accessible,” he said. “We are excited to be partnering with GM and believe this is a ground-breaking and necessary step toward rapidly commercialising autonomous vehicle technology.”

As recently written by Telecoms.com, Gemalto revealed a high level of anticipation and expectation from millennials surrounding the notion of the driverless car. A high amount of pressure exists on telecoms operators to ensure network availability and reliability should a fleet of self-driving vehicles flood city streets worldwide. As the industry approaches an era of ubiquitous 5G technologies, the autonomous car looks likely to become more and more of a reality. Acquisitions, ostensibly in the billions of dollars, do little to suggest the trend will fade away any time soon.