A Silicon Valley veteran with experience at Tesla and self-driving vehicles as well as a high-tech startup will take over leadership of General Motors’ product development for battery electric and ICE vehicles, beginning in June.
GM named former Tesla and Aurora executive Sterling Anderson its chief product officer.
General Motors is placing a former executive from Tesla, with broad experience in an autonomous driving startup, in charge of its future product development.
Sterling Anderson, co-founder and chief product officer of autonomous trucking company Aurora, will take over as Executive Vice President, Global Product, and Chief Product Officer, GM announced this week.
Anderson had been chief product officer at Aurora, which earlier this month put its self-driving technology on the road guiding a Class 8 truck between Dallas and Houston.
Reporting to GM’s President
Anderson will report to GM President Mark Reuss from an office at GM’s Mountain View Tech Center in California’s Silicon Valley. In his new role, which in the past has gone to a “car guy,” Anderson will oversee the end-to-end product lifecycle for both gas- and electric-powered vehicles, including hardware, software, services, and user experience, starting June 2.
Sterling Anderson was one of the founders of self-driving technology company Aurora.
“Our customers are expecting more from our vehicles than ever before,” Reuss said. “We have an opportunity to evolve the way we build from the ground up, with tighter integration between software and hardware, shorter development cycles, and an unwavering focus on a seamless customer experience.”
Sterling brings decades of leadership in automotive engineering and transformative software innovation to his new role and is the right leader to help GM continue leading now and into the future,” Reuss added.
Anderson holds a master’s and Ph.D. degree in robotics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He developed MIT’s Intelligent Co-Pilot, a semi-autonomous vehicle safety system, which helped lay the foundation for major progress in how humans and machines can work together more effectively.
Hailed by Barra
Anderson will report to longtime GM President Mark Reuss.
“Sterling joins GM at a critical time as our industry continues to reinvent itself,” GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra said. “He brings decades of leadership in automotive engineering, tech startups, and software innovation. Sterling will help accelerate the pace of progress — he shares our passion and vision for beautifully designed, high-performing, and technology-forward vehicles.”
Sterling’s appointment comes on the heels of GM’s decision back in December to curtail Cruise, once its self-driving vehicle unit and close a push into robotaxis. GM said it will focus on development of partially automated driver-assist systems for personal vehicles like its Super Cruise, which allows drivers to take their hands off the steering wheel.
GM said it is combining Cruise’s technical team with its own to work on advanced systems to assist drivers, according to Barra, in effort to improve its self-driving technology.
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Aurora moving freight
Aurora recently began self-driving truck service between Houston and Dallas.
In early May, Aurora launched America’s first commercial, fully driverless trucking service in Texas, running regularly between Houston and Dallas. Before co-founding Aurora in 2017, Anderson worked at Tesla, where he led both the Model X program and the team that delivered Tesla’s first Autopilot system. Since Elon Musk took over the development of Full Self-Driving (FSD), Tesla’s driving assistance feature has been mired in controversy and lawsuits.
“GM has a deep heritage, bold vision, and the technical foundation to create products that millions of people love,” Anderson said.
“The world is at an inflection point. Advances in foundational technologies have opened opportunities to revolutionize not just how we create products, but what those products can be and do. I look forward to partnering with the talented team at GM to build on the transformation they’ve already begun.”
The Aurora Driver is a self-driving system designed to operate multiple vehicle types, from freight-hauling trucks to ride-hailing passenger vehicles.
Roots in Silicon Valley
Anderson co-founded Aurora in 2017, with automated vehicle pioneers Chris Urmson and Bagnell. The company is now listed on Nasdaq and is delivering the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly to make transportation safer, increasingly accessible, and more dependable and efficient than ever before.
The company’s key product, The Aurora Driver, is a self-driving system designed to operate multiple vehicle types, from freight-hauling trucks to ride-hailing passenger vehicles, and underpins Aurora’s driver as a service product for trucking and ride-hailing. A key feature of Aurora’s technology is its Lidar system.
Aurora is working with industry leaders across the transportation ecosystem, including Continental, FedEx, Hirschbach, NVIDIA, PACCAR, Ryder, Schneider, Toyota, Uber, Uber Freight, Volvo Trucks, Volvo Autonomous Solutions and Werner.
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