Cruisin’ into robo-bankruptcy;

The bad news continues for Cruise, the autonomous vehicle company owned by GM.

Last month Cruise’s ability to operate in San Francisco was suspended after their cars were involved in two separate accidents. One of the accidents was very serious and involved a woman who was hit by a car driven by a person in an adjacent lane. The victim was sent flying into the lane of the Cruise taxi which braked but wound up running over the woman. Even worse, the taxi performed an automated procedure to move itself out of the way and wound up dragging the victim under the car.

In the wake of that event, Cruise suspended its operations throughout the US.

It gets worse.

G.M. has spent an average of $588 million a quarter on Cruise over the past year, a 42 percent increase from a year ago. Each Chevrolet Bolt that Cruise operates costs $150,000 to $200,000, according to a person familiar with its operations.

Half of Cruise’s 400 cars were in San Francisco when the driverless operations were stopped. Those vehicles were supported by a vast operations staff, with 1.5 workers per vehicle. The workers intervened to assist the company’s vehicles every 2.5 to five miles, according to two people familiar with is operations. In other words, they frequently had to do something to remotely control a car after receiving a cellular signal that it was having problems.