The head of Cruise, General Motors’ autonomous-driving unit, is leaving the company, the carmaker said Thursday without giving a reason.
Dan Ammann, a former investment banker who is from New Zealand, gave up his job as G.M.’s president to take over Cruise at the beginning of 2019. Since then, expectations for autonomous driving have cooled as the magnitude of the technical challenge has become clear and as serious accidents have highlighted the risks.
Cruise, which G.M. bought in 2016 for more than $1 billion, is testing a fleet of more than 300 self-driving vehicles in San Francisco and Phoenix, according to its website. But a driverless ride service, which G.M. said would be available in 2019, has not materialized.
G.M. said a Cruise co-founder, Kyle Vogt, currently the president and chief technical officer, would serve as interim chief executive.
