GM bets $3.5 billion more on self-driving tech unit as SoftBank exits

SoftBank Group Corp’s (9984.T) Vision Fund exited its bet on General Motors (GM) (GM.N) self-driving car subsidiary Cruise as the auto giant upped the ante, investing another $3.45 billion in the loss-making unit…

The SoftBank exit comes as Cruise awaits a regulatory permit to allow it to charge riders for a driverless ride-hailing service launched in San Francisco.

“Based on the experience that we have seen from Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O) Waymo in Arizona, the revenue that you will generate from that deployment will be very, very small,” said Raj Rajkumar, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, referring to a project developed by the parent of Google.

“It is a long road ahead,” he said, adding that GM and partners like Honda may have to “dig deep into their pockets” to fund the unit for the time being.