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Tesla is back in the news cycle, and the crystal ball tells us it’s one of those long-shots. The week began with layoffs — about 10 percent of its workforce of more than 140,000 — and CEO Elon Musk stating that he was going “balls to the wall” for autonomy. It ended with a Cybertruck recall. Cool cool.
There’s a lot more to the newsletter from Tesla — though before we go, take a look Sean O’Kane information on the company’s 1,800-mile Tesla Semi charging corridor program; Read on to catch up Robotics Service” public market debut, a week of highs and lows for Waymoand more.
Let’s go!
A little bird
While much of our focus is on startups and Silicon Valley, we have some little birds in Washington, DC
A little bird told us recently that federal regulators are close to releasing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on autonomous vehicle regulations, which will be the first set of federal guardrails proposed for the industry.
Our source told us Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration The (FMCSA), which regulates commercial vehicles in the US, should have a proposal no later than this summer, in the fall. We’re told that the federal ruling on AVs will likely establish a minimum safety standard for AVs to operate on public roads, but that state governments could impose stricter regulations within their borders. We’ve been hearing about discussions and plans around federal AV regulations for years. Are we finally starting to move forward? We’ll see.
Do you have a tip for us? e-mail Kirsten Korosech at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com, Sean O’Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com or Rebecca Belan at rebecca.bellan@techcrunch.com. If you prefer to remain anonymous, click here to contact uswhich includes SecureDrop (instructions here) and various encrypted messaging apps.
Offer of the week
Serve Robotics, the Nvidia and Uber-backed sidewalk robot provider, went public this week through a reverse merger. Serve expects its public debut to bring in about $40 million in gross revenue, funding that will go toward R&D for future robots, building new robots, geographic expansion and more.
Serve aims to grow its fleet from the 100 robots currently deployed in Los Angeles to 2,000 robots in multiple US cities by the end of 2025 through a partnership with Uber Eats. Serve has huge revenue ambitions, with plans to generate between $60 million and $80 million in annual revenue by the same deadline. In 2023, Serve brought in $207,545 in revenue with a loss of $1.5 million.
FWIW, Uber and Nvidia are still shareholders, but their shares in the company are reduced with this debut. Before the IPO, Uber and Nvidia held a 16.6% and 14.3% stake respectively. Once the offer closes, these stakes will change to 11.5% and 10.1%, respectively regulatory deposits.
Serve’s share price was $4 at the market open on Thursday and closed that day at around $3.
Other offers that caught my eye…
Energy founda startup that uses scrap aluminum to generate heat and hydrogen has raised a $12 million seed round, but Tim De Chant’s story about the company is much more.
Getira Turkish delivery company once worth $12 billion, is According to reports weighing on asset sales and exits from non-core markets as investors pressure to cut losses.
Switch Energy, a company that makes EV charging solutions for apartment buildings, raised $27.2 million in a Series B to expand its charging network and strengthen the technology behind its charging and energy management solutions. Blue Earth Capital led the round with participation from Alantra’s Energy Transition Fund Klima, Active Impact Investments and GIGA Investments Corp.
Notable reads and other items
ADAS
Mobileye has secured orders to ship 46 million from it EyeQ6 Light ADAS chip in the coming years in the automotive industry. Many models coming this year will feature the chip, which promises improved wet road feel, detection and reaction to objects at a greater distance and better ability to read key phrases in road signs. TechCrunch had a chance to dig into it, and our bottom line is that automakers will likely love this chip because it’s more powerful than Mobileye’s latest chip, but it’s priced the same.
Autonomous vehicles
Waymo has begun initial data collection and mapping in Atlanta, the company’s latest geographic win. The Alphabet-owned company hasn’t said whether it plans to roll out in the Georgia city or any other cities it’s mapping, such as Washington, D.C. and Buffalo. In addition to San Francisco, Waymo has launched commercial robotaxi services in Los Angeles and Phoenix, with Austin planned for later this year.
But with ups and downs, come down. Six Waymo vehicles were also caught blocking traffic on a ramp in San Francisco. The vehicles were caught between a construction zone and the ramp and had to pull over to await rescue. A spokesperson told TechCrunch that while Waymo has the green light to go completely driverless on freeways in San Francisco, the company has yet to retire the driver.
Electric vehicles, charging & batteries
General Motors launched a home EV charger and vehicle at home Kit (V2H) that allows a home to draw power from an EV battery in the event of a power outage. Customers in California, Florida, Texas, Michigan and New York can purchase today.
Gogorothe two wheeler battery exchange company and TSMC, a global semiconductor company, are partnering to introduce 15 GoStations across Taiwan that use 100% clean energy. They will also launch Gogoro’s scooter-sharing service in TSMC’s headquarters city, Hsinchu, and expand the city’s charging network.
TeslaCrunch
We’ve been through it all Tesla this week, so let’s dive in.
The week began with company-wide layoffs affecting at least 10% of the organization’s total 140,000 people, with some groups seeing 20% of their staff eviscerated. Two high-profile executives also left Tesla: Drew Baglino, Tesla’s vice president of Powertrain and Energy, and Rohan Patel, vice president of Public Policy and Business Development. Patel told TechCrunch that he left because of “[b]ig general changes” to the company which he declined to specify. In an email sent to the company, CEO Elon Musk said the cuts were necessary to increase productivity and prepare for Tesla’s “next phase of growth.”
(Psssst! Don’t want to read about the Tesla layoffs and what’s next? You can watch it.)
Many of those who were cut, sources say, were high performers who just happened to be working on lower-priority projects. Tesla sources also told TechCrunch that the company made the cuts because it expects poor first-quarter earnings. Deliveries have been subpar, and all those price cuts last year that continued into early 2024 likely hurt Tesla’s margins. Deliveries were down in Q1 year-over-year, despite the $200,000 Tesla spent on advertising on the X, according to our reports.
That may be why Tesla pulled the EV inventory price discounts this week. At X, Musk said the move was in line with Tesla’s strategy to “streamline Tesla’s entire sales and delivery system.”
Those changes in general, and the layoffs in particular, are heightened by Tesla’s proxy statement calling on the board to restore Musk’s $56 billion payout, which a Delaware judge overturned earlier this year. Musk has threatened to reincorporate Tesla in Texas instead, and it looks like the plan will also be put before the board soon.
Meanwhile, on the charging front, Tesla is moving forward with its plan to build an electric big-rig charging corridor stretching from Texas to California, despite being snubbed by a lucrative federal funding program that’s part of the bipartisan bill Biden’s infrastructure.
Tesla this week also had to recall the 3,878 Cybertrucks it has delivered to customers to date because of faulty accelerator pedals that can stick. I know what you’re thinking. Finally, we know how many Cybertrucks Tesla delivered.
This week’s wheels
I’ve been to a handful of new vehicles and can’t wait to share my thoughts, but we’re also running out of space this week. In the next issues, we will have some opinions on electric bikes, the 2024 Lexus LC 500hThe Mercedes-Benz eSprinter 2024 and more.
See you next week!
