The Rivian R2, an all-electric sport utility vehicle that’s smaller and more affordable than the automaker’s flagship SUV, appears to be a hit with potential customers.
At least, if the number of reservations for the R2 is any guide.
Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe posted Friday on Instagram that the company had received more than 68,000 R2 reservations less than 24 hours since the vehicle was revealed at an event in Laguna Beach, California.
The R2 is a five-seat, all-electric midsized SUV that will have more than 300 miles of range and a base price of $45,000.
Rivian also revealed Thursday the R3 and the R3x, all-electric hatchback vehicles with sporty Honda e vibes.
Profitable car rental service Turo is still ready for an IPO, but its growth cratered in 2023Turo, the venture-backed, peer-to-peer car rental service reported its fourth-quarter and full-year financial performance this week in an updated IPO filing.
The company has put the capital to good use, posting quick revenue growth since 2019, positive operating income since 2021 and net profit since 2022.
In 2021 Turo’s growth rebounded from 2020’s pandemic-driven woes impressively, rising 213% that year to $469 million.
However, triple-digit growth was short-lived at the car rental company, which saw its revenue growth slow to 59% in 2022 when it recorded $746.6 million worth of total revenue.
TechCrunch calculates that its Q3 2022 to Q3 2023 growth rate was 13.6%, while its Q4 to Q4 growth over the same time frame was a slightly sharper 14.3%.
The occasion was the unveiling of the Rivian R2, a smaller and more affordable all-electric SUV, and a vital vehicle for the EV upstart hoping to show the world it’s here to stay.
The air was filled with conversations about their Rivian vehicles, exclamations and congratulations, hugs and handshakes, and discussions of their hopes for the R2.
When the Rivian R2 did arrive — it did not come alone.
The R2, a two-row all-electric SUV that will have an estimated range of 300 miles and a base price of $45,000, was the main event.
Today, Rivian produces four vehicles at its sole factory in Normal, Illinois: its two consumer vehicles, the R1T truck and R1S SUV, and two versions of its commercial van.
Ocean intelligence company Saildrone has just put the first of a new generation of Surveyor autonomous vessels in the water: an aluminum version that the Navy is keen to take advantage of.
Founder and CEO Richard Jenkins told TechCrunch that the demand for vessels like SailDrone’s is only growing.
So far, no one has suggested weaponizing the Saildrone vessels, though.
The Austal line is expected to be able to put out one Surveyor every six weeks to start with.
SD-3000 and a few of its in-progress aluminum kin will be detailed to Navy testing of its capability of producing “surface and undersea intelligence for a range of high-priority applications, including anti-submarine warfare.”
Waymo will start letting its autonomous vehicles traverse Austin without a safety operator behind the wheel as of tomorrow, a crucial step before the company opens the program up to the public.
The company announced Tuesday that it will begin shuttling employees around 43 square miles of the Texas capital, including the Barton Hills, Riverside, East Austin and Hyde Park neighborhoods, as well as downtown Austin.
Waymo didn’t offer a timeline for when it plans to start offering autonomous rides to the citizens of Austin.
Waymo continues to steadily expand its autonomous ride-hailing program, which it calls Waymo One, even as other companies in the space have struggled.
Just last month, one of the company’s autonomous vehicles collided with a cyclist in San Francisco — an incident that the California Department of Motor Vehicles is investigating.
The two new Dodge Charger EV coupes — the 2024 Charger Daytona Scat Pack and the milder Daytona R/T trim — are scheduled to enter production in mid-2024.
Gas-powered two-door and four-door Dodge Charger vehicles are also scheduled to begin production in the first quarter of 2025.
The 2024 Dodge Charger launch comes at a precarious time for U.S. and European automakers attempting to navigate an ever-changing EV landscape, where Chinese manufacturers continue to gain ground.
So that’s why we keep it flat out.”EV nuts and boltsThe 2024 Charger Daytona Scat Pack and Daytona R/T trim will come standard with all-wheel drive and a 100.5 kilowatt-hour battery pack.
Those driving modes, which are available in the Scat Pack trim, perform like they sound.
I was in Los Angeles earlier this week where I interviewed Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana on stage at our StrictlyVC LA event.
The approval removes the last barrier for the Alphabet company to charge for rides in these expanded areas.
Yup, that’s right the Apple ended plans to build and sell an autonomous electric car.
Electric vehicles, batteries & chargingXiaomi showed off its first electric car, the SU7, at Mobile World Congress.
I’ve taken numerous rides in Waymo robotaxis, but never one in Los Angeles.
Elsewhere, Mistral, the French AI startup, launched a new model to rival OpenAI’s GPT-4 — and its own cheekily named chatbot dubbed Le Chat.
NewsApple car canceled: Apple has scuttled its secretive, long-running effort to build an autonomous electric car.
Bumble stumbles: Bumble posted weak Q4 results showing a $32 million net loss and $273.6 million in revenue — below Wall Street expectations.
Google’s AI goes awry: Google has apologized for an embarrassing AI blunder this week: An image-generating model that injected diversity into pictures with a farcical disregard for historical context.
PodcastsOn Equity, the crew talked through startup news from Microsoft and Mistral AI, Thrasio and Glean — and also covered happenings over at COTU Ventures and Zacua Ventures.
The company did it with the iPod, iPhone, Apple Watch and, most recently, with its AirPods (the jury is still out on Vision Pro).
Prior to Project Titan, there have been several Apple efforts that failed to see the light of day.
Like Project Titan, Apple never publicly disclosed its existence before it was reportedly scrapped years back.
However, Apple scrapped it and delivered MessagePad, a smaller version of the MessageSlate prototype, later in the year.
Well before the iPhone, Apple tested a “telephone Mac” codenamed W.A.L.T.
Lordstown Motors charged with misleading investors about the sales potential of its EV pickupThe Securities and Exchange Commission has charged bankrupt Lordstown Motors with misleading investors about the sales prospects of its Endurance electric pickup truck.
Lordstown has agreed to pay $25.5 million as a result — money that the SEC says will go towards settling a number of pending class action lawsuits against the company.
“We allege that, in a highly competitive race to deliver the first mass-produced electric pickup truck to the U.S. market, Lordstown oversold true demand for the Endurance,” Mark Cave, Associate Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement said in a statement.
“Exaggerations that misrepresent a public company’s competitive advantages distort the capital markets and foil investors’ ability to make informed decisions about where to put their money.”The SEC says its investigation into Lordstown Motors is ongoing.
This story is developing…
