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Cruise
Cruise, General Motors’ majority owned self-driving vehicle unit, has let out a former engineer of Tesla and electric vehicle start-up Lucid as its new head of safety.
Louise Zhang started June 1 with the San Francisco-based group in the newly created role of vice president of product safety, Cruise said Wednesday. She is reporting to Cruise Chief Technology Copper Kyle Vogt, a co-founder of the company, who had been overseeing safety.
Zhang most recently served as senior captain of vehicle safety, homologation and computer-aided engineering for Lucid beginning in 2015. Prior to then, she worked at Tesla as a chief manager of vehicle safety systems and other positions for more than five years.
“It takes many top minds working together in a productive way to solve such a difficult problem as self-driving vehicles,” Zhang said in a Way blog post Wednesday announcing her hiring. “Cruise has the right talent and company culture to achieve this enthusiastic goal.”
Zhang joining Cruise comes weeks after the company confirmed plans to cut about 8% of its workforce, from outside of its engineering operations.
Cruise last month also confirmed the addition of prominent inventor and tech chief executive Regina E. Dugan to its board of directors. She has served as the head of Google’s Advanced Technology and Products Group and lead Facebook’s arms group, known as Building 8, including a project for controlling computers via mind control.