General Motors Co. on Friday revealed a new tech-themed corporate logo -- its first major change in decades -- and GM's autonomous-car division hired a new operations chief, the latest in the auto maker's efforts to fend off Silicon Valley as new technologies disrupt the car business.
The 'm' in the new logo is a nod to the shape of an electrical plug. General Motors Co via AFP
GM showed the new logo, which features "GM" in lowercase letters in a more-contemporary font and is designed to be more approachable, global marketing chief Deborah Wahl said.
It is the first significant change to GM's blocky blue emblem since the 1960s.
The company plans to include the new logo in a coming advertising campaign that will showcase its future slate of electric-vehicle models.
GM's commercials will feature Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, because the company sees a tipping point coming in consumer acceptance of plug-in cars, Ms. Wahl said.
GM is pegging its growth strategy on electric and autonomous vehicles, although its efforts so far have yet to garner the sort of investor attention that has led to huge valuation increases for Tesla Inc. and many electric-vehicle startups over the past year.
Also on Friday, Cruise, GM's driverless-car division, said it hired Delta Air Lines Inc.'s former chief operating officer, Gil West, as its operations chief, a sign the company is moving closer to offering services to paying customers.
Mr. West, who retired in September after 12 years at Delta, was highly regarded at the airline, where he oversaw the company's rise from a reliability laggard to the top ranks.
The hire signals that Cruise, which has been refining and testing its autonomous technology on the streets of San Francisco for years, is readying its operations to roll out a commercial service.
Mr. West's position is a new role at Cruise, which has spent its seven years as a research-and-development company.
The executive will oversee all aspects of the company's future autonomous ride-hailing network, from fleet management to customer service, a spokesman said.
Cruise missed its goal of launching a driverless ride-hailing service in 2019 and hasn't set a new target date.
Dan Ammann, Cruise's chief executive, in a statement lauded Mr. West's record in safety and customer service at Delta, and said he joins the company "as we begin the journey to commercialize our self-driving technology."
The autonomous-vehicle industry has gone through a relatively quiet period as companies grapple with the technical challenges inherent in developing robot cars that exceed human driving performance.
Cruise and others pushed back their timelines to deploy driverless rides to the public by a year or more. There was a relative dearth of investment in the space last year, as investors flocked to electric-vehicle startups.
Still, a recent string of deals and technical milestones in recent months has led some analysts to predict that the driverless-car space will heat up in 2021.
Waymo LLC, a unit of Google parent Alphabet Inc. that is seen as furthest along in refining driverless technology, recently began offering rides without safety engineers to customers in suburban Phoenix. The company also raised at least $3 billion last year.
In June, Amazon.com Inc. acquired autonomous-vehicle developer Zoox. Last month, Uber Technologies Inc. sold its driverless-car unit to Aurora Innovation Inc.
Cruise, which is backed by Japan's SoftBank Group Corp. and Honda Motor Co., last month began testing autonomous cars on public roads in San Francisco without anyone at the wheel.
Cruise executives have indicated they intend to build out the company's own ride-hailing network once the technology is ready for widespread deployment.
Mr. West led the team that transformed Delta's operations over the past decade, Delta Chief Executive Ed Bastian said in an employee memo announcing Mr. West's retirement last year.
Delta has been the top-rated airline for operational performance in The Wall Street Journal's Middle Seat Scorecard ranking for three consecutive years.
This is GM's second recent high-profile hire from Delta. This fall the company hired Delta's former finance chief, Paul Jacobson, to serve as the auto maker's chief financial officer.
