Ten of TuSimple’s autonomous big rigs are set to be auctioned later this month, just weeks after the self-driving truck startup launched in 2021 announced it is pulling out of the US market.
The trucks, along with a range of research and development equipment and office supplies, will be sold in two online auctions. The first is scheduled to last January 23-25 and a second is scheduled for February 6-8. A spokesman for the auction company confirmed that 10 trucks will be sold “initially”. TuSimple, which had an office in San Diego and an operations facility in Tucson, Arizona, reported in November that it had 35 autonomous trucks in the United States. It is not clear what will happen to the other 25.
TuSimple has dropped from high-flying startup status to an “Unbelievable Deal!!” in an online auction is a sign of how treacherous the road has become for AV startups.
Embark Technologies sold itself (and also was auctioned from some trucks) in 2023, just two years after going public in a transaction that valued the company at more than $5 billion. Argo AI shut down at the end of 2022 despite having big backers in Ford and Volkswagen. Cruise shut down operations, cut its workforce and laid off a number of executives after one of its AVs was involved in an accident late last year.
TuSimple, founded in 2015, was one of the earlier players to jump straight into developing driverless trucks to transport goods across the country. It even won a brief contract in 2019 to deliver mail for the US Postal Service between its Phoenix and Dallas distribution centers.
Although often positioned as an American startup, TuSimple’s founders and funding came from China. The company went public in 2021 and was quickly scrutinized by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States regarding its Chinese shareholders. It eventually ended up under investigation by both the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commissionand then lost a crucial deal to co-develop self-driving big rigs with trucking giant Navistar in late 2022. Since then, the company’s share price has continued to fall from a July 2021 high of $62.58 to just $0.73 today.
TuSimple spent much of 2023 shifting its priorities, at one point saying it would sell off its Chinese operations before reversing course and announcing it wanted to offload the US business. In December, the company said it would leave the US entirely and lay off more than 150 workers as a result.
