Ten of TuSimple's large self-driving trucks will be auctioned later this month, just weeks after the self-driving truck startup that went public in 2021 announced it was exiting the U.S. market.
The trucks, along with a large amount of research and development equipment and office supplies, will be sold in two online auctions. He first is scheduled to take place from January 23 to 25, and a second It is scheduled for February 6 to 8. A spokesperson for the auction company confirmed that “initially” 10 trucks will be sold. TuSimple, which had an office in San Diego and an operations center in Tucson, Arizona, reported in November that it had 35 autonomous trucks in the United States. It is unclear what will happen to the other 25.
TuSimple's fall from high-flying startup status to being touted as an “Amazing Deal!!” in an online auction is a sign of how treacherous the road has become for audiovisual startups.
Embark Technologies was sold (and so was Auctioned of some trucks) in 2023, just two years after going public in a transaction that valued the company at more than $5 billion. Argo ai closed at the end of 2022 despite having big sponsors in Ford and Volkswagen. Cruise halted operations, cut its workforce and laid off several executives after one of its autonomous vehicles was involved in an accident late last year.
Founded in 2015, TuSimple was one of the first players to try to move directly into developing fully autonomous trucks to transport goods across the country. It even won a brief contract in 2019 to deliver mail for the U.S. Postal Service between its Phoenix and Dallas distribution centers.
Although it was often positioned as an American startup, TuSimple's founders and funding came from China. The company went public in 2021 and quickly came under scrutiny by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States over its Chinese shareholders. He eventually ended up under investigation. by both the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commissionand subsequently lost a crucial deal to co-develop large autonomous trucks with transportation giant Navistar in late 2022. Since then, the company's stock price has continued to fall from a July 2021 high of $62.58 to only $0.73 today.
TuSimple spent much of 2023 changing its priorities, saying at one point that it would sell its China business before changing course and announcing that it wanted to divest the US operation. In December, the company said it would leave the United States entirely and laid off more than 150 workers as a result.
