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Welcome back to The Station, your one-stop shop for all past, present and future means of moving people and packages from point A to point B.
While Rebecca Bellan maintained control of the transportation, I headed to the UP Summit, an invite-only event focused on mobility (and primarily aviation) held at Ross Perot Jr.’s Circle T Ranch near Dallas, which brought together founders, investors, high-level executives and industrialists. , designers, pilots, high-ranking military personnel and even politicians, notably former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. As you can imagine, the conversations over coffee and cocktails were fascinating.
He was there to find founders, explore new companies and the investors who could fund them. And yes, I found them.
Some news also emerged from the event, including the company’s electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles. Wisk Aero began flight testing a version of its autonomous air taxi plane in Los Angeles and Alaska Airlines turned to UP.Labs to help him build and launch aviation startups.
Other little things included Google. To the starting drone deliveries from a Walmart in Frisco, Texas, Zipline partnership with Mendocino Farms, California-based evTOL company Can openerwhich is backed by Larry Page, changes its name to Pivotal and reveals its first “scalable production vehicle” called Helix and Beta Technologies opening its first electric aircraft assembly plant in Vermont, a 188,500-square-foot facility that will eventually have the capacity to produce 300 aircraft per year.
There were also funding announcements. Supersonicpersonal electric aerial vehicle startup, closed a $15 million seed round from angel investors, including William, who will also train to become a Jetson pilot; and commissioning of electric marine gliders Regent announced a $60 million raise co-led by 8090 Industries and Founders Fund and a memorandum of understanding with Japan Airlines.
Startups tl;dr: evTOL, and more generally the future of the airline sector, are no longer just a collection of ideas and distant dreams. While there is certainly quite a bit of hype and enthusiasm surrounding the nascent sector, real progress has been made. Of course, challenges remain, including the multi-year certification process with the FAA. In many ways, it reminds me of the autonomous vehicle technology sector five years ago.
I’ll leave you with another fun fact that might go unnoticed. Remember the Estes Industries Rockets from your childhood? John Langfordfounder of Aurora Flight Sciences (acquired by Boeing) and founder of Electra.Aero, he brought the failing company out of bankruptcy in 2018. He was at the event and shared a little about his history and why he wanted to keep these rockets flying. .
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Micromobbing
Bird is laying off more staff, according to an internal email seen by TechCrunch. The company did not confirm how many people would be affected or what equipment, but we are not surprised.
Just over a week ago, Bird was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. A week earlier, the company acquired Spin, the electric scooter operator previously owned by Tier, and before that by Ford. The letter from Bird’s interim CEO, Michael Washinushi, said the layoffs were due to layoffs due to the integration of the two teams.
If anyone has been affected by the layoffs and would like to share information with us, please feel free to reach out!
Meet Bastillethe creators of a low tech folding bike that has normal size wheels.
Finally, pour some for Karim Slaoui, the co-founder of the legendary e-bike company. CowboyWHO died at 36 years old. His reason for being was “to be optimistic and innovate.”
Offer of the week
electric hydrogena green hydrogen technology company based in Massachusetts, raised a $380 million Series C, raising its valuation to $1 billion. That, friends, makes Electric Hydrogen (EH2) the first unicorn of the green hydrogen industry.
We’re starting to see a pickup in investment in green hydrogen as investors begin to recognize that batteries are not ideal when it comes to decarbonizing aviation and long-haul trucking, not to mention steel mills and chemical plants. .
EH2 attracted some heavyweights such as Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund, United Airlines, BP and Fortescue Metals. The company claims its electrolyzers can produce more hydrogen at a cheaper price. This is partly due to EH2’s technology, but partly due to the IRA’s renewable energy incentives. EH2 says those deals will help it produce green hydrogen that is truly competitive in today’s market and doesn’t use cheap natural gas to generate greenhouse gas emissions.
Other offers that caught my attention…
Ground Boltan Indian startup that offers charging infrastructure and software solutions for electric vehicles. raised $20 million to expand its presence in India and beyond. The round was funded by new and existing investors including Union Square Ventures, Prime Venture Partners, and ITIGO Funds, among others.
Rather there is no agreement. Small electric vehicle manufacturer ElectraMeccanica has finished his plan to merge with hydrogen electric truck maker You go.
Kinetic automation closed a $10 million Series A to expand its network of service centers focused on electric vehicles. Lux Capital and Construct Capital led the equity round, with participation from Haystack Ventures, Automotive Ventures and Shakti Ventures.
Loopa Chicago-based provider of auditing and payment systems for logistics companies, obtained $35 million in funds from JP Morgan, Growth Equity Partners and Index Ventures.
rivian said it intends to offer $1.5 billion in green convertible senior notes, sending shares plummeting. The automaker also shared a preliminary forecast for its third-quarter earnings. Alex Wilhelm explained what it all means in a CT+ publicationBut here are a couple of financial highlights:
- Q3 2023 revenue between $1.29 billion and $1.33 billion (vs. $540 million a year ago).
- The ending cash balance for the third quarter of 2023 was $9.1 billion, compared to $10.2 billion at the end of the second quarter of 2023.
Vayu Robotics closed a $12.7 million seed round led by Khosla Ventures with participation from Lockheed Martin Ventures, ReMY Investors and others. Vayu is working on a low-cost detection technology to replace lidar.
Notable readings and other tidbits
ADA
tesla won a victory this week when a judge ruled that a group of Tesla owners were unable to file claims in court that the company falsely advertised its Autopilot and FSD systems. This is not a win for the technology itself, but rather for Tesla’s terms and conditions. The judge found that all of the plaintiffs had agreed to arbitrate any legal claims when they signed up for their services, which they could have opted out of within 30 days. Tesla’s success in dodging a class-action lawsuit could encourage other automakers to resort more to this tactic.
autonomous vehicles
TO Cruise robotaxi was involved in another scandalous incident, which is currently being investigated by the San Francisco police. TechCrunch viewed a video of the incident showing how a pedestrian was hit by a human-driven vehicle. The pedestrian landed in the lane where the Cruise robotaxi was located. The Cruise vehicle “braked aggressively,” but the pedestrian was still struck and then trapped under the vehicle.
Deliveries
Polar Star It delivered 13,900 units in the third quarter, a 12% decrease from the second quarter, but a 50% increase from the same period last year.
rivian reported it produced 16,304 vehicles and delivered 15,564 to customers in the third quarter. These results are 23% higher than those of the previous quarter.
tesla’The third quarter numbers were 7% less than the previous quarter. The automaker delivered 435,059 vehicles in the third quarter, missing Wall Street expectations. Tesla attributed the error to planned downtime at its factories.
Electric vehicles, charging and batteries.
Ford is launching another version of its electric F-150 Lightning truck that prioritizes technology and battery range over other premium features. The Lightning Flash will start at $68,995 and will come with a 320-mile extended battery range, a version 1.2 of Ford’s hands-free ADAS, a 15.5-inch touchscreen, and other fun features.
hyundai and Come on They are the latest to promise future electric vehicles built with Tesla’s NACS charging standard. What we want to know iswhen it will bevolkswagen Join the party?
He RWD Pure Lucid Airthe automaker’s low-end offering, it is available to order at a starting price of $77,400.
Gig economy
Uber was found to have did not comply with EU algorithmic transparency requirements in a legal challenge brought by two drivers whose accounts were cancelled.
Uber He also introduced a characteristic which allows you to send your packages by courier to the post office, UPS or FedEx. And no, it’s not a pivot away from the sketchy, drug-mule-attracting peer-to-peer messaging service that Uber currently has. We asked.
Miscellaneous
David Clarkthe former Amazon executive who was ousted as CEO of flexible port a year on the job, responded to Flexport’s founder and board of directors by calling a recent report about the logistics company “deeply worrying.” He said he discovered big problems when he joined in September 2022, including a “revenue forecasting model that consistently provided overly optimistic results.”
smart eye revealed its new driver monitoring system developed specifically for bus and truck manufacturers to detect drowsiness.
