Greg Gardner

Detroit Free Press

General Motors is acquiring a San Francisco startup company that claims to have the ability to make a vehicle autonomous with a cluster of sensors strapped to the top of a car.

The company, Cruise Automation, was founded in 2013 and calls its product a "highway autopilot," according to a 2014 article from Forbes.com.

The device enables drivers to take their car onto the highway, then they can push a button that transfers control of the accelerator, brakes and steering.

GM declined to say how much it is paying for Cruise or whether it is cash or stock. But Fortune magazine reported that GM paid more than $1 billion in a combination of cash and stock. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the second quarter.

"That price seems awfully high, especially when valuations of other Silicon Valley companies have come down recently," said Egil Juliussen, senior research director at IHS Automotive. "They did have a venture capital investment of about $20 million in mid-to late 2015 which took them to a valuation of about $100 million. Maybe someone else was competing for it."

For a high-tech company its website is conspicuously spare. While the landing page simply shows Cruise + General Motors, a link reading "Join the Driverless Revolution" takes one to open job postings.

GM forms a team to oversee self-driving vehicles

Under terms of the acquisition Cruise will operate from San Francisco, founder Kyle Vogt will report to GM’s recently formed Autonomous Vehicle Development Team led by Doug Parks, GM vice president of autonomous technology.

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

No turning back in race to fully autonomous cars

Later this year, GM will begin offering a fleet of autonomous Chevrolet Volts for use by its employees at the Warren Tech Center.

GM and other traditional automakers have been introducing autonomous features gradually on new models for several years. These include adaptive cruise control, automatic emergency braking and line-departure alerts.

GM UAW workers to receive profit-sharing up to $11,000

These technologies are taking the cars' capability to what are known within the industry as Level 2 and Level 3 autonomy. GM's plan to introduce a semi-autonomous cruise control feature it calls Super Cruise on the Cadillac CT6 has been pushed back to next year.

Google, which has been testing a fleet of its driverless cars on public roads for several years around its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, is committed to developing a safe and commercially viable vehicle with full, or Level 4, autonomy.

GM envisions Cruise Automation as providing it the potential to reach full autonomy.

“GM's commitment to autonomous vehicles is inspiring, deliberate, and completely in line with our vision to make transportation safer and more accessible,” said Cruise's Vogt, in a statement.

Earlier this year GM invested $500 million in ride-sharing company Lyft. Last month it launched Maven, a car-sharing network in Ann Arbor. Eventually it wants to introduce a fleet of autonomous cars to Lyft to taxi customers without the risk of drivers' misconduct.

Contact Greg Gardner: (313) 222-8762 or ggardner@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @GregGardner12