- General Motors hired Sterling Anderson to lead its work on the end-to-end lifecycle of its products.
- Anderson previously oversaw the development of Tesla’s Autopilot program until 2016.
- He also co-founded the autonomous trucking company, Aurora.
Another day, another Tesla defector heads to Detroit. This time, it’s none other than Sterling Anderson, one of the OGs who headed up Tesla’s early Autopilot program until he left in 2016 to co-found the autonomous trucking company, Aurora.
General Motors announced on Monday that it has hired on Anderson as its Chief Product Officer. Basically, it means that he’ll oversee the end-to-end lifecycle of both EVs and gas-powered cars at GM. Everything from hardware to software and services falls under his purview, which is a pretty wide umbrella since automakers around the globe are looking to transition to software-defined vehicles. Thankfully, Anderson’s resume is a pretty impressive one.
Photo by: Chevrolet
Let’s talk about his time at Tesla. Anderson was one of the key players on the Autopilot team in 2015—he led the unit, after all—all while helping to develop Tesla’s “faberge egg,” the Model X. His work on Autopilot was crucial in defining the automaker’s early template of vehicle autonomy, which was revolutionary in a passenger car at the time.
Anderson left Tesla in 2016 to form a Silicon Valley super group. Alongside some of the greatest minds in autonomy from Waymo and Uber, he helped to co-found the autonomous trucking outfit, Aurora—one of the few self-driving freight startups that still haven’t gone belly-up.
GM hired on Anderson at an interesting time. The automaker officially abandoned the plans for its commercial robotaxi service, Cruise, late last year after sinking billions of dollars into development. Instead, CEO Mary Barra said that it would focus on building out personal assisted driving systems (like Super Cruise).
Now, Anderson’s exact role doesn’t spell out his involvement in Autopilot, but as someone who will be responsible for overseeing software products from cradle to grave, it seems likely that GM is hoping to lean on his nearly experience in the autonomy sector to help lead the march towards a (mostly) driverless future. Not just how the products work on day one, but how automakers can provide ongoing functionality to vehicles as they age.
It’s also worth calling out the GM (hell, Detroit in general) is no stranger to hiring on Tesla alumni. The automaker hired the former head of Tesla’s battery team, Kurt Kelty, as the VP of its battery and propulsion division last year. Ford hired another one of Anderson and Kelty’s cohorts, Doug Field, who helped to deliver on the Model 3 during his time at Tesla. And those are just a few examples of Tesla’s old guard who migrated to bigger and better things at Legacy OEMs over the last few years.
Will this hire leapfrog GM ahead of other OEMs in terms of autonomy? Probably not. But Anderson’s experience is well-rounded. Between vehicle autonomy, robotics and a strong push for safety in vehicle software, GM clearly sees value to bringing on someone who has helped to bring innovative products from idea to market. And maybe that means that Anderson will help spark the start of GM’s next big thing.
