The board of General Motors’ (GM’s) self-driving unit Cruise has officially appointed its next CEO, following a major shakeup that ensued in the wake of an October accident with one of the company’s robotaxis.
On Tuesday, Cruise shared a press release announcing that former Xbox team founder and Amazon services executive Marc Whitten has been appointed as the company’s new CEO. Whitten will fill the new role starting on July 16, and will serve alongside standing President and CEO Mo Elshenawy.
“In a few years, transportation will be fundamentally safer and more accessible than it is today, creating much more value for individuals and communities around the world. It is an opportunity of a lifetime to be part of this transformation,” Whitten said in the press release. “The team at Cruise has built world-class technology, and I look forward to working with them to help bring this critical mission to life.”
Whitten helped launch Xbox and Xbox Live, along with scaling the platforms, before going on to serve as Chief Product Officer at Sonos, VP of Entertainment Devices and Services at Amazon, and President of Unity Create.
Following the announcement, he wrote in a post on LinkedIn that accepting the Cruise position had been the “easiest ‘yes’ in his career,” adding that he was “inspired by its deep and meaningful mission and world-class technology.”
Whitten will also be joined by the company’s newly hired Chief Communications and Marketing Officer, Nick Mulholland, who has served as the VP of Global Communications of Rivian for the past few years.
“My core belief is that this technology and Cruise’s dedication to its mission will change the world. Achieving such a bold vision will require a deep and meaningful collaboration with the communities we serve,” Mulholland said in the press release. “It is an incredible opportunity to play a role in building these vital connections.”
The news comes as GM attempts to re-launch Cruise’s self-driving services, after one of the company’s driverless vehicles hit, dragged, and pinned a pedestrian in San Francisco in October, after the person had already been hit by another car with a human behind the wheel.
After the accident, the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) revoked the company’s permit to operate self-driving vehicles, followed by a series of layoffs and departures.
Cruise co-founder and former CEO Kyle Vogt resigned from his position on November 19, and fellow co-founder and former Chief Product Officer Daniel Kan resigned the following day. In December, the company announced a staff reduction of around 24 percent of its workers.
GM also announced plans to cut spending on Cruise in half this year while it tries to regain public trust and relaunch the service.
“At Cruise, we are committed to earning back the trust of regulators and the public through our commitments and our actions,” GM CEO Mary Barra wrote in a shareholder letter in April.
Cruise began testing again with human drivers last month, though the tests are currently limited to Phoenix, Arizona. Alongside the announcement, Cruise said it also planned to gradually expand to a handful of the surrounding suburbs.
Cruise ordered to pay max penalty for delayed accident report
What are your thoughts? Let me know at zach@teslarati.com, find me on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send us tips at tips@teslarati.com.
The Tesla Model Y L is arguably the most hyped trim of the all-electric crossover, other than the Performance configuration that comes with white-knuckle speed and sports car-level handling.
However, it is not all perfect. Tesla owners in China who took delivery of the Model Y L, denoted with an L to highlight its longer wheelbase, are experiencing what they are referring to as “collapsing” of the rear wheels, as suspension issues appear to be an issue with some of the builds.
🚨 Model Y L owners in China report rear suspension sag
• Six-seat long-wheelbase Y. Shanghai. On sale since August 2025
• Owners say the rear tire-to-arch gap shrinks after mileage or a full load. Some cases after about 9,000 km loaded. Others near 30,000 km
• Tesla service… pic.twitter.com/Lr6i5Tbi07— Joe Hansen (@joehansen) September 1, 2026
The gap between the wheel arch and tire has narrowed to the point that “not even a single finger” could fit, according to a report from Car News China. The failures are not tied to a specific mileage, as one owner said that after just 9,000 kilometers (5,600 miles), they noticed the suspension issue when their car was fully loaded.
Another one had the issue at 30,000 kilometers (18,640 miles) and noticed that the wheel gap shrank to two fingers, so not as drastic as the person who reported a similar issue at 9,000 km.
Tesla Model Y L is gaining momentum in China’s premium segment
Along with the visual recognition of the issue, others are saying the sagging is causing abnormal wear on the inside of the tires. Extra weight and instant torque already provide additional stress on the tires in electric vehicles during normal operation, so it is no surprise that this is another complaint.
There has been no recall issued by Tesla, and the company has not yet publicly acknowledged the issue.
Some are suggesting that owners use a “finger test” to self-diagnose whether there is an issue with the suspension. There should be four fingers between the tire and the wheel well; anything less than that starts to get dicey.
Tesla is starting to truly tease and hype its groundbreaking Cybercab event, which takes place tomorrow in Austin, Texas. It will be the first time members of the public will be able to ride in a Cybercab, a vehicle without any manual controls, on public roads.
Tesla has been dropping some hype on X over the past several days, but this morning, the excitement has truly started to build up for the event. Although Cybercab has been unveiled before, this is truly Tesla’s announcement that it is ready to start offering autonomous rides for public passengers in its new ride-hailing-geared vehicle for the first time.
The hype has started with a variety of different social media posts that are a true indication that Tesla is preparing for something big. Teasing so much of the potential of Cybercab, including its ability to truly revolutionize how people hail rides for local travel, is what the big idea for the event entails. The time that many Tesla owners, fans, and investors have been waiting for is potentially here:
— Tesla (@Tesla) September 2, 2026
The event has remained slim on details. Even invitees are still awaiting true details about what the event will entail, where they’ll go, and what is in store for the evening. This is pretty typical for an event run by Tesla; they keep things under wraps for the most part until the very last minute.
However, there is no secret about what the real intention of Tesla is for this event: it is going to be a huge reveal party for a vehicle that has no steering wheel and no pedals. It is a truly massive step for the company moving forward.
No steering wheel, no pedals
— Tesla Robotaxi (@robotaxi) September 2, 2026
Speculation persists as to whether this is going to be an event that simply announces that rides will begin with the Cybercab, or it will be something more substantial. Tesla has said in the past that they plan to sell the Cybercab to the general public in what could become a great way to earn passive income by adding it to a more global fleet of Robotaxi-geared vehicles.
Tomorrow, the show begins in Austin, and the Cybercab goes live at some capacity; we just don’t know exactly how quite yet.
News
SpaceX tells the FCC that Starship Flight 14 is going to orbit
SpaceX filed with the FCC for Starship Flight 14, its first true orbital launch attempt.
SpaceX has asked the Federal Communications Commission for permission to fly Starlink terminals during Starship’s fourteenth flight test, and the filing lays out a genuine trip to orbit, something the program has never attempted.
Every Starship flight so far, including Flight 13’s successful splashdown in the Indian Ocean on July 24, has flown a suborbital arc that ends with the ship reentering the atmosphere within the same hour it launches. The FCC paperwork describes a mission profile built around an actual orbital insertion instead.
The payload is the other half of the story. Flight 13 carried 20 production Starlink V3 satellites, but because that mission never reached orbit, the satellites reentered along with the ship rather than joining the constellation, something Teslarati covered in detail after SpaceX released footage shot from one of those satellites as it drifted away from Starship in space. Flight 14 is designed to close that gap. If the orbital insertion holds, the roughly 20 V3 satellites onboard would separate into an operational orbit and could eventually go into service, each one rated for about 1 terabit per second of downlink capacity by SpaceX’s own account.
SpaceX announces new Starbase for ‘thousands of Starship launches annually’
Elon Musk first flagged the orbital attempt during SpaceX’s August 4 earnings call, the company’s first as a public entity following its June IPO under the ticker SPCX. He also floated catching the ship with the Starbase tower on the same flight, an idea he walked back on August 20, saying the catch attempt would more likely come “in a few months,” as Teslarati reported at the time. Flight 14 will instead target a splashdown for the ship in the Indian Ocean, the same recovery method used since Flight 12.
Hardware has been catching up to the ambition. Booster 21 completed a full 33-engine static fire on August 28, and Ship 41 finished its own six-engine test the week before. An airspace briefing circulated to pilots on August 20 listed September 15 as the target date, later than the end of August window Musk mentioned on the earnings call, though SpaceX has not confirmed a launch date publicly and Starship schedules routinely slip while hardware and FAA paperwork line up.
The FCC filing itself does not guarantee a launch date. It covers communications authority, and not flight readiness, considering SpaceX still needs Ship 41 fully stacked and cleared by the FAA before Flight 14 can fly. But the filing is a real marker of intent and it puts a specific regulatory process behind what had so far only been Musk’s word on the earnings call.
Tesla Model Y L gets suspension complaints in over odd issue China
Tesla Cybercab event gains steam ahead of massive launch
