General Motors has acquired San Francisco-based start-up Cruise Automation to accelerate its work in autonomous vehicles.

The company was founded in 2013 and has built an aftermarket product that is positioned as a Highway Auto Pilot. As it cannot change lanes but works at low speed and highway speed, it would be classified between Level 2 and Level 3 in the NHTSA levels of autonomous driving.

“Fully autonomous vehicles can bring our customers enormous benefits in terms of greater convenience, lower cost and improved safety for their daily mobility needs,” said GM President Dan Ammann.

“GM’s commitment to autonomous vehicles is inspiring, deliberate, and completely in line with our vision to make transportation safer and more accessible,” said Kyle Vogt, founder of Cruise Automation. “We are excited to be partnering with GM and believe this is a ground-breaking and necessary step toward rapidly commercializing autonomous vehicle technology.”

According to reports, GM has paid around $1bn for the acquisition, which Mark Reuss, GM executive vice president, Global Product Development, Purchasing and Supply Chain, said “provides our company with a unique technology advantage that is unmatched in our industry. We intend to invest significantly to further grow the talent base and capabilities already established by the Cruise team.”

The move comes just months after GM announced it was acquiring the assets of former ride-hailing firm Sidecar.

In response, to the latest acquisition, Egil Juliussen, IHS Automotive, said that GM’s move is likely to spur other OEMs to react and determine what their strategy should be. There are essentially four different potential strategies:

He added: “In summary, the race towards autonomous cars had already been gaining speed and this further increases the pace towards adding autonomous features. It is likely there will be more acquisitions, cooperation and deals of all kinds in 2016 and beyond.”