All posts tagged: techcrunch mobility

Tesla drives Luminar lidar sales and Motional pauses robotaxi plans

Tesla drives Luminar lidar sales and Motional pauses robotaxi plans

Published by skeptic

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Tap, tap. Mic check. Check 1, 2, 3. This thing on? Hey hey, yup, it’s the same TechCrunch Mobility newsletter you love, but on a different day. That’s right, this is not Sunday. It is in fact, Thursday morning.  Shall we jump into the latest transportation news? Heck yeah, let’s do this. A little bird Image Credits: Bryce Durbin The little birds in the autonomous vehicle industry were active this week. The biggie was a tip about Motional, the autonomous vehicle startup created by a joint venture between Hyundai and Aptiv. If you recall, Hyundai recently agreed to spend nearly $1 billion on Motional — $475 million as a direct investment into the company and another $448 million to buy 11% of Aptiv’s common equity interest in the venture.  This week, we got to the consequences part of that deal. Motional is pausing all commercial operations and …

Hyundai antes up B for AV startup Motional and Elon unplugs the Tesla Supercharger team

Hyundai antes up $1B for AV startup Motional and Elon unplugs the Tesla Supercharger team

Published by skeptic

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Before I jump into the all the news — and boy there was a lot! — I have an important update for all of you lovely readers. TechCrunch Mobility is moving to Thursdays! It will be the same newsletter filled with news and insights on the sector, but just landing in your inboxes Thursday morning. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! EV startup Fisker laid off more employees to “preserve cash” as bankruptcy inches ever closer; ride-hailing company Ola cut about 180 jobs and ousted its chief executive, Hemant Bakshi, merely four months after appointing him to the post; and lidar company Luminar slashed its 700-person workforce by 20% as part of a restructuring to adopt an “asset light” business model. Oh, and then there was Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who axed the automaker’s global Supercharger network team. That perplexing decision comes just as non-Tesla EV drivers gain access to the network. That’s not …

Tesla profits tumble, Fisker flatlines, and California cities battle for control of AVs

Tesla profits tumble, Fisker flatlines, and California cities battle for control of AVs

Published by skeptic

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here — just click TechCrunch Mobility — to receive the newsletter every weekend in your inbox. Subscribe for free. Welp, Tesla earnings happened this week — and yeah that was a lot. A lot of what, you ask? A lot of the same kinds of promises and hand waving we’ve seen before, but just wrapped up in slightly different packaging. The stakes this time around remind me of Tesla’s pre-profit era circa 2018. Now, to be clear, Tesla has enjoyed profitability since 2020. But it is facing downward pressure on its bottom line — the company saw profits fall 55% year over year — and an aging portfolio of its highest volume vehicles. (And yes, we covered the new Model 3 Performance variant; I’m talking about new mass market models here.) Tesla CEO Elon Musk need to generate new sources of revenue. And fast. The company can’t wait two years — or more — to launch a new platform …

Tesla layoffs, Cybertruck recalls and Serve Robotics goes public

Tesla layoffs, Cybertruck recalls and Serve Robotics goes public

Published by skeptic

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here — just click TechCrunch Mobility — to receive the newsletter every weekend in your inbox. Subscribe for free. Tesla is back in the news cycle and our crystal ball says it’s one of those long-term affairs. The week kicked off with layoffs — about 10% of its more than 140,000-person workforce — and CEO Elon Musk declaring he was going “balls to the wall” on autonomy. It ended with a Cybertruck recall. Cool cool. There’s lots more in the newsletter than just Tesla — although before we move on, do check out Sean O’Kane’s scoop about the company’s 1,800-mile Tesla Semi charging corridor program. Read on to catch up on Serve Robotics’ public market debut, a week of highs and lows for Waymo, and more. Let’s go!  A little bird While much of our focus is on startups and Silicon Valley, we do have some little birds in Washington, D.C. A little bird told us recently that federal …

TechCrunch Mobility: Cruise robotaxis return and Ford’s BlueCruise comes under scrutiny

TechCrunch Mobility: Cruise robotaxis return and Ford’s BlueCruise comes under scrutiny

Published by skeptic

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here — just click TechCrunch Mobility — to receive the newsletter every weekend in your inbox. Subscribe for free. It was another wild week in the world of transportation, particularly in the EV startup and automated driving industries. Sure, Cruise got our attention by announcing a return of sorts. But there’s a lot more to read about, including Indian ride-hailing giant Ola exiting the U.K., Australia and New Zealand; a feature on a New York–based startup that wants to bring curbside EV charging to lampposts; Uber Eats launching a TikTok-like video feature; and contract manufacturer Magna piloting humanoid robots developed by Sanctuary AI. Oh, one more thing — reporter Rebecca Bellan is back! I know readers missed her, so show her a bit of love by sending her some tips at [email protected]. Let’s go!  A little bird Founders, investors, engineers, policy wonks and others tell us things. And we’re here to pass along the verifiable information that those little birds …

TechCrunch Mobility: Fisker enters into dumpster fire territory and Tesla chases FSD revenue

TechCrunch Mobility: Fisker enters into dumpster fire territory and Tesla chases FSD revenue

Published by skeptic

TechCrunch Mobility is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click TechCrunch Mobility — to receive the newsletter every weekend in your inbox. Subscribe for free. Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Remember in the last edition of TechCrunch Mobility, when I wrote that the wheels were starting to come off the Fisker bus? Sheesh. Did they. To catch you up: Fisker issued a warning on March 18 that it was pausing production for six weeks and had just $121 million in cash and cash equivalents, $32 million of which was restricted or not immediately accessible. The company was counting on a $150 million influx of capital via convertible notes and a potential partnership with another automaker. Those hopes incinerated as fast as a gasoline-soaked rag when negotiations between Fisker and the large automaker — reported to be Nissan — fell apart and put that convertible note deal in jeopardy. Shares plummeted 28%, trading was halted, and in a …

TechCrunch Mobility: The wheels are starting to come off the Fisker EV bus

TechCrunch Mobility: The wheels are starting to come off the Fisker EV bus

Published by skeptic

TechCrunch Mobility is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click TechCrunch Mobility — to receive the newsletter every weekend in your inbox. Subscribe for free. Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Before we jump into the startup and tech fray, I wanted to touch on some activity over on the hill — Capitol Hill, that is. The Biden Administration has released two new (and separate) proposed standards — via the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Environmental Protection Agency — that will affect U.S. automakers and, ultimately, you. While both regulations have been softened to assuage the automotive industry, car dealers and unions, they also put in place far stricter standards than existed before. The DOE issued a gentler “petroleum equivalency factor,” which gives EVs a score, of sorts, under the government’s corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards. The original proposal would have made it difficult for automakers to meet the CAFE standards, which would have meant billions …

Another autonomous vehicle startup shutters, Zoox expands driverless testing and investor fervor for AI escalates

Another autonomous vehicle startup shutters, Zoox expands driverless testing and investor fervor for AI escalates

Published by skeptic

TechCrunch Mobility is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click TechCrunch Mobility — to receive the newsletter every weekend in your inbox. Subscribe for free. Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. I spent a few days in Austin for SXSW, where I met with up founders and executives, caught a few talks and even moderated two panels. While generative AI was clearly the big attraction, the future of transportation still garnered attention from investors, urban planners, founders, corporations and media. I heard a lot of conversations about how autonomous vehicles would fit into cities as well as debates over what technology could help alleviate traffic and reduce emissions. I caught an interesting conversation between Austin Mayor Kirk Watson and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, who predicted the company would be greener, more affordable and challenge Amazon in the future. These goals seem a bit more attainable — and higher on the priority list — now that Uber has finally ticked …

Rivian’s big bet, Waymo goes driverless in Austin and the Chevy Blazer EV returns

Rivian’s big bet, Waymo goes driverless in Austin and the Chevy Blazer EV returns

Published by skeptic

TechCrunch Mobility is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click TechCrunch Mobility — to receive the newsletter every weekend in your inbox. Subscribe for free. Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. This week, it was all about Rivian and its splashy reveal of not one, but three future EVs. I attended the event to see the vehicles up close. Perhaps, more importantly, I also went to talk to executives, investors and customers to get a better understanding of where Rivian is headed and how folks are feeling about this EV upstart that is still far from turning a profit. I even ran into former Waymo CEO and now Rivian board member John Krafcik who was in attendance and cast a positive tone about the company’s future. I also interviewed founder and CEO RJ Scaringe after the event. Much of our conversation centered around the R2 and a big and hopefully fruitful bet to shift production to its existing …

Waymo scores a critical robotaxi permit, Fisker cuts more workers and Apple car fades away

Waymo scores a critical robotaxi permit, Fisker cuts more workers and Apple car fades away

Published by skeptic

TechCrunch Mobility is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click TechCrunch Mobility — to receive the newsletter every weekend in your inbox. Subscribe for free. Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. I was in Los Angeles earlier this week where I interviewed Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana on stage at our StrictlyVC LA event. You can watch the whole interview here, which covers her views on the Apple Car project, the company’s “community tour” in Los Angeles, whether Waymo learned anything (or changed) in the wake of the Cruise debacle and if it’s committed to staying in San Francisco even if vandalism of its robotaxis continues. The following morning (and by total coincidence), the California Public Utilities Commission approved Waymo’s application to operate a commercial robotaxi service in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Peninsula and on San Francisco freeways. The approval removes the last barrier for the Alphabet company to charge for rides in these expanded areas. Importantly, it …