It does seem strange but when one considers that the CEO of one of these competitors spent ~$260M to help elect the next President and he will have his ear on matters of autonomous car regulation, maybe not so strange.
If future autonomous car regulations are influenced by Musk and end up being lax and favour the technological approach that Tesla has taken, then GM/Cruise may have made significant irrelevant investments to solve issues that are no longer relevant, and this puts them on poor footing in the new competitive landscape.
It's possible they're bowing out early on the assumption that this will no longer be a competition that they can win.
It does seem strange but when one considers that the CEO of one of these competitors spent ~$260M to help elect the next President and he will have his ear on matters of autonomous car regulation, maybe not so strange.
If future autonomous car regulations are influenced by Musk and end up being lax and favour the technological approach that Tesla has taken, then GM/Cruise may have made significant irrelevant investments to solve issues that are no longer relevant, and this puts them on poor footing in the new competitive landscape.
It's possible they're bowing out early on the assumption that this will no longer be a competition that they can win.