GM taps Aurora co-founder for new chief product officer role

Basic Motors has turned to Sterling Anderson, a veteran of the autonomous car trade, to supervise its total product line of gas-powered and electrical automobiles, in a newly created job that can contact practically each division on the U.S. automaker. The brand new VP of world product and chief product officer place will cowl all the lifecycle of GM’s portfolio and embody {hardware}, software program, providers, and consumer expertise.

Anderson, who will report back to GM President Mark Reuss, begins within the new place June 2. He’ll based mostly within the firm’s Mountain View Tech Middle in California.

Anderson made headlines final week after asserting he was resigning from Aurora, the autonomous car firm he co-founded with two different pioneers within the AV sector. His resignation, which incorporates from the Aurora board, got here only a week after the corporate launched its commercial self-driving truck service in Texas.

Anderson advised TechCrunch he had not anticipated leaving Aurora, however the extra conversations he had with GM management, together with Chair and CEO Mary Barra, the extra he “appreciated the potential for what we may do there.”

“The scope of what we’ll do at GM is expansive,” he famous in a current interview. “It’s a capability to have an effect on tens of millions of individuals’s lives for the higher, together with with simply magical experiences of their automobiles that additionally enhance the protection and efficacy of our roadways.”

Anderson’s position covers each nook and cranny at GM, which underneath Barra has pushed to modernize and electrify its portfolio of automobiles. He’ll lead car and manufacturing engineering, battery, and software program and providers product administration groups. Meaning Kurt Kelty, who heads battery, propulsion, and sustainability and in addition hailed from Tesla, will report back to Anderson.

The automaker’s heads of world manufacturing and product engineering, software program and providers, car product packages, security, and integration will even report back to Anderson.

“Our prospects expect extra from our automobiles than ever earlier than,” Reuss stated in a press release. “We’ve a chance to evolve the best way we construct from the bottom up, with tighter integration between software program and {hardware}, shorter growth cycles, and an unwavering give attention to a seamless buyer expertise. Sterling brings many years of management in automotive engineering and transformative software program innovation to his new position and is the correct chief to assist GM proceed main now and into the longer term.” 

Anderson stated he wouldn’t have left Aurora, the place he was chief product officer, if the corporate had not lately met its main driverless self-driving truck service milestone.

Anderson wouldn’t say what was on his preliminary to-do listing at GM, noting he would give attention to understanding the corporate, its tradition, and merchandise.

Anderson stated there was “a reasonably lengthy listing of issues” that he’s very taken with understanding higher. Nevertheless, GM shareholders, prospects, and workers shouldn’t anticipate excessive departures from the corporate’s present path.

He famous that his areas of curiosity are all in step with the imaginative and prescient Barra has laid out, akin to the necessity for fast iteration and software-defined car platforms that present prospects with providers and updates for the car by its lifetime.

Anderson was director of Tesla’s Autopilot program when he left to co-found Aurora in 2017 alongside CEO Chris Urmson, the previous head of the Google self-driving undertaking, and Drew Bagnell, who was main Uber’s autonomy and notion crew. The pedigree of the trio gave Aurora fast buzz, serving to it entice high-profile buyers like Sequoia Capital, Amazon, and T. Rowe Value Associates, in addition to a slew of partnerships.

Anderson holds grasp’s and PhD levels in robotics from the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise.