Patrick Morrisey, VP of corporate communications at GM, told TechCrunch that the reduction in spending is still in effect, despite today’s capital infusion.
In total, Cruise has already raised over $15 billion, per Crunchbase data.
In October, a Cruise robotaxi ran over and dragged a pedestrian 20 feet in San Francisco.
The pedestrian had initially been hit by a human-driven car and landed in the path of a Cruise robotaxi.
In other states where AV companies don’t need to acquire permits, Cruise is already making a comeback.
It created an electric pickup and an electric SUV while prepping a monster IPO.
It now plans to sell an even cheaper SUV that could make Rivian a dominant EV player for years to come.
These changes mean that, for the first time since the company broke stealth in 2018, Rivian’s immediate future is actually remarkably clear.
Fisker is on the brink of bankruptcy after dealing with underwhelming sales of its electric SUV and myriad quality and service problems.
If Rivian wants to survive long enough to ship its more affordable mass-market R2, it really needs these revamped vehicles to sell well.
The self-driving technology company announced Wednesday plans to begin testing in Austin and Miami this summer.
Earlier this week, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requested more information from Zoox to aid its probe into rear-end crash risks posed by unexpected braking.
Zoox also didn’t say when it aims to remove the safety driver or begin commercial operations in Austin or Miami.
The plans to test in Austin and Miami come as Zoox gears up for its first commercial launch.
The company won’t be testing those vehicles on public roads in Austin or Miami, just yet.
Tesla is recalling all 3,878 Cybertrucks that it has shipped to date, due to a problem where the accelerator pedal can get stuck, putting drivers at risk of a crash, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Reports of problems with the Cybertruck’s accelerator pedal started popping up in the last few weeks.
Tesla said it first received a notice of one of these accelerator pedal incidents from a customer on March 31, and then a second one on April 3.
It also told NHTSA that it has started building Cybertrucks with a new accelerator pedal, and that it’s fixing the vehicles that are in transit or sitting at delivery centers.
While the Cybertruck only first started shipping late last year, this is not the vehicle’s first recall.
Founded in 2015, Orbex is one of a handful of firms racing to develop the next generation of European launch vehicles.
The company is developing what’s sometimes called a microlauncher: a two-stage vehicle called Prime that stands just 19 meters tall, designed to carry payloads up to 180 kilograms.
A larger vehicle could eventually be in the plans as well, though Chambers was clear that Prime was the company’s first priority.
The new capital comes after Orbex closed a £40.4 million ($50 million) Series C in October 2022.
While a spokesperson confirmed the new funding will “help Orbex ramp up the development of Prime … to ensure full readiness and scalability for its launch period,” a firm launch window has yet to be announced.
Seven Waymo robotaxis blocked traffic moving onto the Potrero Avenue 101 on-ramp in San Francisco on Tuesday at 9:30 p.m., according to video of the incident posted to Reddit and confirmation from Waymo.
California regulators recently approved Waymo to operate its autonomous robotaxi service on San Francisco freeways without a human driver, but the company is still only testing on freeways with a human driver in the front seat.
After hitting the road closure, the first Waymo vehicle in the lineup then pulled over out of the traffic lane that was blocked by cones, followed by six other Waymo robotaxis.
It’s not the first time Waymo vehicles have caused a road blockage, but this is the first documented incident involving a freeway.
In San Francisco, there must be a driver in the car in order to issue a citation.
One of Tesla’s delivery workers who was cut this week and spoke to TechCrunch on the condition of anonymity said their location was “short staffed” but still lost multiple employees.
The decision to end discounts across its lineup in the United States, including the Model 3, Model Y, Model S and Model X is a bit of a whiplash moment for Tesla.
And in the first quarter of 2024, Tesla’s delivery numbers fell year-over-year.
It’s not clear how removing discounts on Tesla vehicles fits into the automaker’s new strategy to streamline sales and delivery.
But beyond the initial purchase, Tesla has almost always been making changes to its sales and delivery strategy.
Tesla has slashed the price of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software subscription to $99 per month, down from $199 per month, as the electric vehicle maker aims to boost adoption of its advanced driver assistance system ahead of first-quarter earnings.
The price cut comes a couple of weeks after Tesla launched a free one-month trial of FSD for every customer in the U.S. with a compatible Tesla.
The FSD price cut comes the same week that Tesla released more tweaks to its latest V12 version of the software to certain users.
More drivers with FSD doesn’t only mean more money for Tesla.
Tesla might also be angling for more training data so it can meet CEO Elon Musk’s promise to unveil a Tesla robotaxi in August.
Currently, Exponent Energy has 60 charging stations in six cities: Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Kolkata and Hyderabad.
Vinayak told TechCrunch that Exponent Energy’s charging stations offer 10x efficiency by charging 20 to 30 vehicles daily, whereas other EV charging stations typically charge two vehicles.
Similarly, setting up an Exponent charging station costs nearly $6,000 (500,000 Indian rupees), while a CNG station demands hundreds and thousands of dollars.
This has restricted the availability of CNG to around 60 stations in Bengaluru, while Exponent Energy already has 40 charging stations in the city, the executive said.
It is also looking to deploy its charging tech on electric buses in India later this year.
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.
