The funding, which would go to Rocket Lab subsidiary SolAero Technologies, would help increase the company’s compound semiconductor production by 50% within the next three years.
The funding would help the company build out its Albuquerque-based facilities and create more than 100 direct manufacturing jobs, Rocket Lab said in a statement.
Rocket Lab acquired SolAero, which operates a ~115,000-square-foot manufacturing facility, in 2022 for $80 million.
The company is one of just two in the United States that specializes in the production of space-grade, radiation-resistant compound semiconductors, or space-grade solar cells.
SolAero is highly vertically integrated: In addition to the solar cells, the firm also manufactures solar panels and power modules.
Lucid Motors delivered more EVs in the first quarter of 2024 than it has in any other quarter, though it set the record by a very slim margin.
The Saudi-backed, California-based electric vehicle company said Tuesday morning that it shipped 1,967 luxury sedans in the quarter.
That’s just a few more than it shipped in the fourth quarter of 2022, when it set its previous record of 1,932 deliveries.
Lucid’s new delivery record comes as the company is struggling to find consistent demand for its pricey luxury sedan, the Air.
But it has not specified how many Air sedans have made it to the Kingdom to date.
Crucially, Tesla shipped fewer cars than it did in the first quarter of 2023, meaning this was the first year-over-year drop in sales in three years.
Production was also down year-over-year, which Tesla attributed to switching to making the new Model 3, as well as the other disruptions.
These drops come just two months after Tesla warned that sales growth could be “notably lower” in 2024 as it comes off a successful 2023 fueled by price cuts.
Bloomberg News reported last month that Tesla curtailed output at its Shanghai factory as a result of slower sales growth in the country.
Tesla tried to pull a few tricks at the end of the quarter to boost sales, as it usually does.
Spotify has carved out a business for itself in music streaming, podcast entertainment and audiobooks.
Starting with a rollout in the U.K., Spotify is testing the waters for an online education offering of freemium video courses.
Mohit Jitani, the London-based product director for the education business, said in an interview that pricing choices were part of what it’s testing.
Around half of Spotify Premium subscribers have listened to education or self-help themed podcasts, Spotify says.
Offering educational content aimed at running a business, or improving your music production, fits with that.
Sentry has long helped developers monitor and debug their production code.
While it’s called Autofix, this isn’t a completely automated system, something very few developers would be comfortable with.
In the process, Autofix will provide developers with a diff that explains the changes and then, if everything looks good, create a pull request to merge those changes.
Autofix supports all major languages, though Elser acknowledged that the team did most of its testing with JavaScript and Python code.
That also means that users must opt in to send their data to these third-party services to use Autofix.
EV startup Fisker is pausing production of its electric Ocean SUV for six weeks as it scrambles for a cash infusion.
The company said in a Monday morning regulatory filing that it had just $121 million in cash and cash equivalents as of March 15th, $32 million of which is restricted or not immediately accessible.
Fisker finished 2023 having shipped roughly 5,000 of the 10,000 cars that its contract manufacturing partner, Magna Steyr, produced.
Automotive manufacturing is incredibly expensive, even for a company like Fisker which is outsourcing much of the work to suppliers like Magna.
In the near-term, Fisker said Monday it is trying to raise $150 million through the sale of convertible notes.
India will lower import taxes on certain electric vehicles for companies committing to invest at least $500 million and setting up a local manufacturing facility within three years, a move that could potentially bolster Tesla’s plans to enter the South Asian market.
Firms meeting these requirements will be allowed to import 8,000 EVs a year at a reduced import duty of 15% on cars costing $35,000 and above.
India currently levies a tax of 70% to 100% on imported cars depending on their value.
The decision could pave the way for Tesla to enter India, as the Elon Musk-led company has been in talks with the government to lower import duties on its electric cars for years.
The move also aligns with India’s goal to boost the adoption of EVs and reduce its dependence on oil imports, with the country setting a target of achieving 30% electric vehicle sales by 2030.
This piece combines Ai video, Ai photo, 3D CGI, 2D VFX, Motion graphics, 35mm film, digital video and advances in Ai voiceover.
Every current Ai tool was explored and pushed to the maximum.” [I have left “AI” as “Ai” throughout.]
In an apparently now-deleted comment, Walker says that they did ask for access to Joshua, but “were rejected several times.
They didn’t need crew, they didn’t need locations, they didn’t need craft… Filmmakers have to stand together as we traverse this new AI landscape.
Perhaps they underestimated the passion of the creators whose decidedly analog and human-focused processes actually produce original and compelling content.
When electric-vehicle startup Telo Trucks announced its pint-sized pickup, people predictably went nuts.
Fleet customers went nuts, too.
“There’s this unspoken thing where fleet companies that do work in cities can no longer buy small trucks,” Jason Marks, Telo Truck’s co-founder and CEO, told TechCrunch.
“We will still want to address the early users, and we want to intermingle that with delivering to bigger fleet customers at the same time.”With that opportunity comes more funding.
Rivian is notably similar in that it’s chasing both consumers and fleet customers, though its production ramp is radically different.
Rivian has a little cinematic surprise tucked in its new “treehouse” rooftop tent, one of the many accessories the automaker plans to sell alongside its next-generation R2 SUV and future R3 EVs.
The rooftop tent, which Rivian calls the treehouse, is equipped with a movie projector, which is run using power from the Rivian, Brian Gase, Rivian’s senior director of prototype and special projects, told TechCrunch during a customer event in Laguna Beach, California.
The customer event was held Thursday evening, several hours after Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe unveiled the all-electric R2 SUV and the sporty R3 and R3x hatchback vehicles.
The treehouse, as Rivian has branded it, is different from the white-labeled Yakima tent designed for its flagship R1T truck.
This new treehouse product is contained in a hardshell, which then opens up into a large rooftop tent.
