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Good morning readers! Welcome to The Station. This is your central hub for all the past, present, and future means of moving people or packages from Point A to Point B. I'm transferring the wheel to Aria Alamalhodaei, Rebecca Bellan, and Rebecca Bellan.
Before I leave, however, I must share the Nuro EC-1 series of articles about the autonomous vehicle startup. They were written by Mark Harris, an investigative science reporter and tech journalist, with the assistance of myself and our copy editor team. Extra Crunchs' flagship editorial offerings include this deep dive into Nuro.
As always, you can email me at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com to share thoughts, criticisms, opinions or tips. You can also send me a direct message at Twitter @kirstenkorosec.
Micromobbin
This week, New York City launched its long-awaited scooter pilot program in the Bronx. There are more than 90 parking areas specifically designed for e-scooters. Residents can also park on the sidewalk in non-obstructive spots. The pilot was conducted by Bird, Lime, and Veo, who each brought their own strengths.
Bird states that it will be focusing on the Bronx mobility gap and will use its AI drop engines to ensure equal deployment in all areas of the pilot zone. Veo's Astro VS4 e-scooter, the first with turn signals, and its Cosmo, a seated escooter, are both focusing on safety. Lime also has a Lime Able program that offers an on-demand range of adaptive vehicles. Lime highlighted the safety quiz that new riders will need to complete before they can hop on a vehicle.
All three companies committed to working with community organizations in order to hire local people and to offer affordable pricing to vulnerable groups.
Big week for Bird
Bird was officially launched in NYC. It also received a 12-month permit that allows it to operate 1,500 scooters around San Francisco. Although technically Scoot was the one who got the permit, Scoot, which is Bird's property, was the backdoor to the city. Scoot was operating with unlicensed subcontractors when the SFMTA requested that Scoot stop operations.
After careful consideration of Scoot's application, the SFMTA decided that Scoot was eligible for a permit-to-operate. Scoot plans to get its vehicles back on roads within the next few weeks.
Bird also launched their consumer ebike, the Bird Bike. I believe this is the same name as the shared ebike. Bird has not had the best luck with profitability. This is because most scooter companies haven't. Bird can now diversify their business, take a slice of the $68billion e-bike sales pie, and increase brand awareness in all markets. According to Bird's S-4 filing, the bike is $2,229, and consumers will make up approximately 10% of Birds future revenue.
Google Maps now integrates Bird (and Scoot). As of this week, Spin is also integrated with Google Maps. As we saw with Lime joining Moovit a few weeks ago, more integrations like this show how shared micromobility has become more integrated into the way we move around cities and plan our journeys. These integrations are welcome from me.
Alex Wilhelm finally dug into the new financial data from Bird. The short version: the quarterly data show an improving economic model, and a multiyear path towards profitability. Wilhelm says that unless multiple scenarios work together and without any glitches, this path can be fraught.
Rebecca Bellan
Deal of the Week
Imagine a future where drivers swap batteries at small pods on the roadside instead of charging their electric cars. This is the future Ample envisions, and it has announced a $160 million funding round this week to expand its operations.
Moore Strategic Ventures led the international funded Series C with participation by PTT, a Thai state owned oil and gas company and Disruptive Innovation Fund. Eneos, a Japanese oil and gas company, and Singapore's public transit operator SMRT were also present investors. The total amount of funding available is currently $230 million.
Although it is an intriguing idea, automakers will need to buy in to make it a reality. For example, you could sell vehicles with either Amples or standard batteries pre-installed. According to John de Souza, co-founders of Ample, and Khaled Hassounah from Ample, it would not be difficult for OEMs to seperate the car's battery.
According to Hassounah, the OEMs' marketing department wants you to believe that this is a super-duper lithium-ion battery that is fully integrated with your car. There is no way you could separate it. They are built separately, and this is true for nearly all batteries in cars, even a Tesla.
He explained that the battery was removed from vehicles because we designed our system to interface with other vehicles.
We also noticed other deals this week
AEye, a lidar startup, has completed its reverse merger, with special purpose acquisition firm CF Finance Acquisition Corp. III. AEye now trades on the Nasdaq stock exchange and is a publicly traded company.
Canada Drives, an online platform for car delivery and shopping, has announced $79.4 Million ($100 Million CAD) in Series A funding. This will be used to expand its service throughout Canada. It will use the funding it received to improve the product, expand its inventory in new markets, and to hire approximately 200 people in product development over the next year.
DigiSure is a digital insurance company that caters for modern mobility forms such as peer-to-peer platforms. It has announced a $13.1million pre-Series-A funding round. The funds will be used by the startup to hire more than 50 engineers and data scientists, as well as business development and insurance specialists. It also plans to expand into new verticals and into Europe.
High Definition Vehicle Insurance Group (a commercial auto insurance company initially focused on trucking) raised $32.5 Million in Series B funding led by Weatherford Capital. New investors Daimler Trucks North America, McVestCo and Weatherford Capital joined the group, as well as continued participation from Munich Re Ventures 8VC, Autotech Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures LLC, and Qualcomm Ventures LLC.
RepairSmith, an auto repair company that delivers a mechanic directly to drivers' homes, has raised $42 million to expand its reach to all major metropolitan areas by 2022. The company aims to disrupt the auto repair and servicing industry, which has seen little change over the past 40 years.
REE Automotive received $17 million from UK government as part a $57million investment coordinated by the Advanced Propulsion Centre. According to the company, the investment is in line the UK's ambition to accelerate the transition to zero-emission vehicles.
Swvl, a Dubai-based mobility and transit company, has acquired a controlling stake in Shotl. It will now expand into Europe and Latin America. Shotl is a transit and mobility company that operates in 22 cities in 10 countries. It matches passengers with vans or shuttles going in the same direction. To provide mobility solutions to underserved populations, the company partners with municipalities and governments. Swvl declined financial details of the transaction. However, a spokesperson for TechCrunch stated that the acquisition will double the company's footprint.
Xos Inc. is a manufacturer of electric commercial vehicles from Class 5 to 8 and has completed its business merger with NextGen Acquisition Corporation. Xos was a reuslt and made its public debut on Nasdaq.
Notable reads and other interesting tidbits
Advanced Driver Assistance Systems
Concerning Tesla investigations: When it rains, it pours. The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration began a preliminary investigation into Tesla's Autopilot advanced driver assist system. They cited 11 instances in which vehicles collided with parked first responder vehicles.
According to documents posted by the agency, the Tesla cars involved in the collisions had either Autopilot or Traffic Aware Cruise Control. The majority of these incidents occurred after dark, despite the presence of emergency vehicle lights, road cones, and an illuminated board signaling drivers that they should change lanes.
A few days later, Senators Edward Markey (D-Mass.) Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), and Senator Edward Markey (D-Mass.) requested that the Federal Trade Commission's new chair investigate Tesla's statements regarding the autonomy of its Autopilot system and Full Self-Driving system. Tesla's misleading customers into believing that their vehicles can fully autonomously drive, was a concern of the senators.
They stated that Tesla's marketing has overstated its vehicles' capabilities, making them a greater threat to motorists and others on the road. We urge you to investigate the potentially misleading and unfair marketing practices of Tesla's driving automation systems in advertising and marketing and to take the appropriate enforcement action to ensure safety for all drivers.
Autonomous Vehicles
Waymo is Alphabets autonomous trucking arm. It is expanding its operations in Texas, Arizona, and California. According to the company, it is building a trucking hub in Dallas and working with Ryder to provide fleet management services.
Dallas will serve as the central launch point for the Waymo Driver and its transfer hub model. This mix of automated trucking and manual trucking optimizes transfer hubs close to highways to ensure that the Waymo Driver sticks to main thoroughfares while human drivers handle last-mile deliveries.
Electric vehicles
CEO Tony Aquila stated that Canoo expects to produce 25,000 units from VDL Nedcars by 2023.
Canoo has grown its workforce year over year from 230 to 656 employees. 70% of these are software and hardware engineers. Operating expenses for startups have increased by $19.8 million to $104.3million YOY. The majority of this increase has been due to R&D.
Stellantis, Ford, Toyota, and Volkswagen are just a few of the carmakers that announced production cuts this week in response to the global shortage of semiconductors. It's been a difficult week.
Here's a quick summary: Toyota stated that it expected a drop in production of between 60,000 and 90,000 vehicles in North America by August. Ford then joined the chorus and announced that it would temporarily shut down its F-150 plant in Kansas City. Volkswagen stated to Reuters that it could not rule out additional changes in production due to the chip shortage. Stellantis has stopped production in France at one of its factories.
At its AI Day, Tesla revealed what it calls the D1 computer chip that powers its advanced AI training supercomputer Dojo. Ganesh Venkataramanan (Director Tesla) said that the D1 is GPU-level computing with CPU connectivity, twice the I/O bandwidth and twice as much compute power than the current state of the art networking switches chips. These switch chips are considered to be the gold standard.
Venkataramananan also showed a training tile that combines multiple chips to increase bandwidth. It has a computing power of 9 petaflops per tiles and 36 Terabytes per second. The Dojo supercomputer is made up of the training tiles.
There was more. Elon Musk, CEO of the company, revealed that they are developing a humanoid robotics system. A prototype is expected to be ready in 2022. This bot is proposed to be a non-automotive robotic application case for the company's neural networks research and Dojo advanced supercomputer.
Reality check: Tesla isn't the only automaker or company to explore humanoid robotics. Honda's Asimo robot is a long-standing invention. GM and Toyota have their own robots. Hyundai recently purchased robotics company Boston Dynamic.
You can find the complete rundown of Teslas AI Day here.
In-car tech
AT&T and General Motors will roll out 5G connectivity in select Chevy and Cadillac vehicles starting in model year 2024. This boost, the companies claim, will provide more reliable software updates and faster navigation and downloads, and better coverage on roads.
The hype surrounding 5G technology is high because it promises speed and reduced latency across many industries. This next-generation tech was widely anticipated by everyone as a revolutionary breakthrough that would revolutionize the world. This has not happened yet, partly because network rollout was slower than expected. This announcement can be understood as an indication that AT&T believes its 5G network is mature enough to support millions of connected vehicles by 2024.
Ride-hailing
RubiRides is a ride-hailing service that focuses on children. It was launched in Washington D.C. This ride-hailing service was created for children 7 years old and over. The service also provides ride services for seniors or people with special needs. Noreen Butler founded the company after she was inspired by the need for transportation to help her children get around.
