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While Rebecca Bellan held back the transport fortress, I moved to UP Top, an invite-only occasion paid attention to flexibility (and also primarily aeronautics) kept at Ross Perot Jr’s Cycle T Farm near Dallas that united creators, clients, C collection managers, manufacturers, developers, aviators, high-level army and also also political leaders, particularly past UK head of state Boris Johnson. As you could visualize, the chats over coffee and also beverages were actually exciting.
I existed to discover creators, check start-ups and also the clients that could cash all of them. And also yea, I discovered all of them.
Some updates visited of the occasion at the same time, featuring that electrical upright launch and also touchdown automobile business Wisk Aero began tour screening a model of its own independent sky taxi airplane in Los Angeles and also Alaska Airlines touched UP.Labs to aid it create and also release aeronautics start-ups.
Other details featured Google.com’s Wing beginning drone distributions coming from a Walmart in Frisco, Texas, Zipline partnering along with Mendocino Farms, California-based evTOL business Opener, which is actually supported through Larry Web page, rebranding to Critical and also uncovering its own 1st “scalable development automobile” contacted Coil and also Beta Technologies opening its own 1st electric-aircraft convocation vegetation in Vermont, a 188,500-square-foot resource that is going to inevitably possess the capability to create 300 airplane each year.
There were actually financing news at the same time. Jetson, the individual electrical flying automobile start-up, shut a $15 thousand seed sphere coming from angel clients featuring will.i.am, that are going to likewise teach to come to be a Jetson aviator; and also Electric seaglider start-up Regent introduced a $60 thousand raising co-led through 8090 Industries and also Founders Fund and also an MOU along with Asia Airlines.
The tl;dr: evTOL start-ups, and also extra generally, the future of tour field, is actually no more merely a selection of distant concepts and also fantasizes any longer. While there is actually undoubtedly a fair bit of buzz and also enjoyment around the inceptive field, true progression has actually been actually created. Naturally, problems, featuring the multi-year accreditation method along with the FAA, stay. In a great deal of methods, it tells me of the independent automobile modern technology field 5 years ago.
I’ll leave you along with another exciting truth that may be under your radar. Always Remember the Estes Industries spacecrafts coming from your childhood years? John Langford, the creator of Aurora Trip Sciences (Boeing obtained) and also creator of Electra.Aero, acquired the stopping working business away from personal bankruptcy back in 2018. He went to the occasion and also discussed a little concerning his account and also why he wished to maintain these spacecrafts soaring.
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Micromobbin’
Bird is laying off even more staff, depending on to an inner e-mail checked out through TechCrunch. The business didn’t affirm to our team the amount of individuals would certainly be actually influenced, neither where staffs, however our company’re certainly not startled.
A little bit over a full week earlier, Bird was actually delisted coming from the NYSE. A full week just before that, the business obtained Spin, the e-scooter driver that was actually earlier possessed through Rate, and also just before that Ford. The character coming from Bird’s acting chief executive officer Michael Washinushi stated the unemployments resulted from verboseness coming from incorporating the 2 staffs.
If anybody has actually been actually influenced due to the unemployments and also desires to discuss details along with our team, don’t hold back to communicate!
Meet Bastille, the creators of a low-tech folding bike that has actually regular sized tires.
Finally, put some out for Karim Slaoui, the founder of fabulous e-bike business Cowboy, that passed away at 36-years-old. His raison d’etre was actually to “be actually positive and also introduce.”
Deal of the week
Electric Hydrogen, a Massachusetts-based eco-friendly hydrogen modern technology business, increased a $380 thousand Set C, taking its own appraisal around $1 billion. That, individuals, produces Electric Hydrogen (EH2) the eco-friendly hydrogen field’s 1st unicorn.
We’re starting to see an uptick in green hydrogen investment as investors begin to recognize that batteries aren’t ideal when it comes to decarbonizing aviation and long-haul trucking, not to mention steel mills and chemical plants.
EH2 brought on some heavy hitters like Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund, United Airlines, BP and Fortescue Metals. The company says its electrolyzers can produce more hydrogen at a cheaper price. That’s partly due to EH2’s tech, but partly due to the IRA’s renewable energy incentives. EH2 says those offers will help it make green hydrogen that’s actually competitive in today’s market and doesn’t use cheap natural gas to generate greenhouse-gas emissions.
Other deals that got my attention…
Bolt.Earth, an Indian startup that offers charging infrastructure and software solutions for EVs, 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.
More like no deal. Tiny EV maker ElectraMeccanica has terminated its plan to merge with hydrogen EV truck maker Tevva.
Kinetic Automation closed a $10 million Series A to expand its network of EV-focused service centers. Lux Capital and Construct Capital led the all-equity round, with participation from Haystack Ventures, Automotive Ventures and Shakti Ventures.
Loop, a Chicago-based provider of audit and payment systems for logistics companies, secured $35 million in funds from JP Morgan, Growth Equity Partners and Index Ventures.
Rivian said it intends to offer $1.5 billion of green convertible senior notes, which sent shares plummeting. The automaker also shared a preliminary forecast into its Q3 earnings. Alex Wilhelm broke down what this all means in a TC+ post, but here are a couple of financial highlights:
- Q3 2023 revenue between $1.29 billion and $1.33 billion (compared to $0.54 billion a year earlier).
- Q3 2023 ending cash balance of $9.1 billion, down from $10.2 billion at the end of Q2 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 sensing technology to replace lidar.
Notable reads and other tidbits
ADAS
Tesla scored a win this week when a judge ruled that a group of Tesla owners couldn’t pursue claims in court that the company falsely advertised its Autopilot and FSD systems. This isn’t a win for the tech in itself, but rather for Tesla’s terms and conditions. The judge found that the plaintiffs had all 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 lean more heavily on this tactic.
Autonomous vehicles
A Cruise robotaxi was involved in yet another scandalous incident, which is currently being investigated by the San Francisco police. TechCrunch saw video of the incident, showing how a pedestrian was struck by a human-driven vehicle. The pedestrian landed in the lane where the Cruise robotaxi was. The Cruise vehicle “braked aggressively” but the pedestrian was still run over and then stuck under the vehicle.
Deliveries
Polestar delivered 13,900 units in the third quarter, a 12% decline from Q2, but a 50% rise from the same period last year.
Rivian reported it produced 16,304 vehicles and delivered 15,564 to customers in the third quarter. Those results are 23% higher than the previous quarter.
Tesla’s Q3 numbers were 7% lower than the previous quarter. The automaker delivered 435,059 vehicles in Q3, missing Wall Street expectations. Tesla attributed the miss to planned downtime at its factories.
Electric vehicles, charging & batteries
Ford is launching another version of its electric F-150 Lightning pickup that prioritizes tech and battery range over other premium features. The Lightning Flash will start at $68,995 and will come with an extended battery range of 320 miles, a 1.2 version of Ford’s hands-free ADAS, a 15.5-inch touchscreen and other fun features.
Hyundai and Kia are the latest to promise future EVs built with Tesla’s NACS charging standard. What we want to know is, when will Volkswagen join the party?
The Lucid Air Pure RWD, the automaker’s lower-end offering, is available to order at a starting price of $77,400.
Gig economy
Uber was found to have failed to comply with EU algorithmic transparency requirements in a legal challenge brought by two drivers whose accounts were terminated.
Uber also introduced a feature that allows you to courier your packages to the post office, UPS or FedEx. And no, it’s not a pivot away from the sketchy, drug-mule-attracting peer-to-peer courier service Uber currently has going. Our team asked.
Miscellaneous
Dave Clark, the former Amazon exec who was ousted as CEO of Flexport a year into the job, fired back at Flexport’s founder and also board calling a recent reporting on the logistics company “deeply concerning.” He said he discovered extensive problems when he joined in September 2022 including a “revenue forecasting model that was consistently providing overly optimistic outputs.”
SmartEye revealed its new driver monitoring system developed specifically for bus and also vehicle producers to identify sleepiness.
