GM to commercialise AV technology with $2.25 billion from SoftBank Vision Fund

General Motors announced today that the SoftBank Vision Fund will invest $2.25 billion (Rs 15,158 crore) in GM Cruise holdings (GM Cruise), further strengthening the company’s plans to commercialise Autonomous Vehicle (AV) technology at large scale. GM will also invest $1.1 billion (Rs 7,409 crore) in GM Cruise upon closing of the transaction. As per the official release, the capital is said to arrive by the beginning of 2019.

“Our Cruise and GM teams together have made tremendous progress over the last two years,” said GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra. “Teaming up with SoftBank adds an additional strong partner as we pursue our vision of zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion.”

“GM has made significant progress toward realizing the dream of completely automated driving to dramatically reduce fatalities, emissions and congestion,” said Michael Ronen, managing partner, SoftBank investment advisers. “The GM Cruise approach of a fully integrated hardware and software stack gives it a unique competitive advantage. GM President Dan Ammann said, “We look forward to partnering with SoftBank as we work toward deploying AV technology safely and in a massive scale.”