The daughter company of car giant General Motors is in crisis after a driverless car dragged a woman several meters in an accident. In response, Cruise suspended their rides a month ago and cut expansion plans.

In an email published on Thursday (local time) to company employees, it was announced that approximately 900 full-time jobs, mainly in non-technical areas, will be eliminated. This corresponds to a share of 24 percent of the total workforce.

The accident occurred in early October when the Cruise robotaxi trapped a woman underneath it after a collision with another vehicle. Despite the vehicle braking immediately, the woman still managed to get caught under the car. According to the accident report, the robotaxi had decelerated to a speed of 11 km/h.

According to programming, the Cruise vehicles should stop at the roadside in such situations to not impede traffic. However, in this case, the software decided to do so even though the woman was still under the vehicle. She was dragged for about six meters before the car came to a halt.

As a result of these incidents, Cruise has decided to temporarily forgo the introduction of their "Origin" self-driving taxis without a steering wheel and pedals next year. Instead, modified cars of the GM electric model Chevy Bolt will continue to be used. Additionally, operations will only be resumed in one city for now. Cruise has previously been operating in six US cities and had plans to add twelve more cities next year.

San Francisco becomes a testing ground for autonomous taxis, driven by concerns over traffic disruptions and safety issues raised by the city administration and numerous residents. In addition to Cruise, Google's sister company, Waymo, also received permission from a California regulatory agency in the summer to expand its self-driving transportation service throughout the entire city.

In pre-market trading on the NYSE, GM stock rose by 0.52 percent to 36.44 US dollars.