Trucks | FoT: Aurora, Waymo/Toyota, May Mobility

FoT is the intelligence arm of Trucks Venture Capital 

Notable:

Aurora ran driverless routes in Texas this week, the first part of its scaling plan, in conjunction with Uber Freight and Hirschbach (link). Aurora is already publicly traded and worth about 1/3 of Waymo at the moment, although some believe the trucking market will ultimately be worth more than robotaxi. Another way of looking at this is if Waymo added trucking back into its plans it would be 1/3 larger. In any case, this is a huge achievement for Aurora and another signal that 2025 is the Christie Brinkley year for AVs ('Being real is more important than being popular'). Sped-up video of one of the runs (link).

Tesla board reportedly opened search for a CEO to succeed Elon Musk (link). 'The board narrowed its focus to a major search firm, according to the people familiar with the discussions. The current status of the succession planning couldn’t be determined. It is also unclear if Musk, himself a Tesla board member, was aware of the effort, or if his pledge to spend more time at Tesla has affected succession planning. Musk didn’t respond to requests for comment.' For a long time Tesla didn't seem like it would even exist without Musk; now there is at least some suggestion (perhaps even at its own board) that it would do better in his absence. I do not expect a change will take place at any point soon.

US House voted this week for a resolution to repeal the EPA's California waiver for EVs and emissions overall (link). Most notably about the vote, it also included ayes from 35 democrats (link).

China pushes hybrids on Europe while it waits for tariff softening (link). 'BYD pays a 27.5% tariff on BEVs it sells in the EU, and 10% for PHEVs.'

Ford's large internal vehicle architecture project 'FNV4' (or fully-networked vehicle) reportedly canceled (link). What's unclear about this report is if all of Ford's zonal architecture work is canceled or if it's just this particular architecture.

The definitive litmus test for 'is it autonomous?' in my view is the classic 'Roy's Razor' (link). The system must be able to answer one simple question: Can I sleep in it?

Video: exploring the supercar junkyards of Dubai (link). Video: Designer Giorgetto Giugiaro visits the Gran Turismo-maker Polyphony Digital (link). Via Diego. Video: Joby Aviation achieves a VTOL-first: pilot-on-board transition from hover to thrust (link). Video: Jay Leno drives the Telo Truck (link). Audio: Auriga Space CEO Winnie Lai on the Just Another Space podcast (link). Video: corporate heelies (link). Via TO.

M&A / Deals / Changes:

Indian EV ridehailing startup Blusmart shuts down (link).

Waymo and Toyota announce a partnership, with specifics left a bit cloudy but the potential appears to be rather massive (link). I have seen some people say this means Waymo is going to start to ship their tech into Toyota vehicles, but the language on that isn't definitive -- it seems like both Waymo and Toyota would have to develop something entirely new for that to take place. In the near term, this likely points to Toyota (and/or Lexus) vehicles entering Waymo's fleet in the future.

Uber and May Mobility announce plans for May's AVs to enter the Uber network 'in the thousands' over coming years in multiple locations (link).

African battery swapping startup Kofa raises $8.1M (link). Led by E3 Capital.

How ebike brand Juiced was saved by Lectric (link).

Uber adds Momenta as another AV provider, for markets 'outside of the US and China' (link).

Turo announced a 15% layoff, and I respect the way the CEO Andre Haddad announced it (link). He even offered to help the laid off employees find a new role; spreadsheet of them can be found here (link).

Swedish aviation startup Heart Aerospace picks up and moves to Los Angeles (link).

LiDAR startup Luminar gets design win on upcoming Mercedes-Benz product (link).

S&P Global intends to spin out its automotive and mobility-focused businesses into a standalone public company (link).

Board & Executive Changes:

AEye: Doron Simon joins board (link).

Mobileye Global: Chris Schell to depart board, less than 12 months after joining (link).

Ouster: Ken Gianella named CFO (link).

Curated Jobs:

Senior/Staff Safety Engineer at Gatik in Mountain View, CA, USA (link).

Senior Mechanical Engineer at Joby Aviation in San Carlos, CA, USA (link).

Hiring? Post a job (link). If you're a startup, use code 'Trucks' for free standard listings.

Hunting? View all 364 postings on the MobilityJobs job board (link).

New Stuff:

United Airlines cancels Newark flights over FAA staffing (link). 'Technology that controllers rely on to manage traffic has failed several times in the past few days. That resulted in dozens of diverted flights, hundreds of delays and cancellations, and thousands of customers with disrupted travel plans.'

JetZero's triangle-shaped jet on track to fly by 2027 (link).

Trump's next Air Force One is a refurbished Qatari plane (link).

Charged is a new app for finding EV charging locations (link).

Patents & Patent Applications:

Ford's patent application shows enhanced facial recognition for vehicle authorization (link).

Statistics / Projections:

Researchers show cyclists and pedestrians were 44% more likely to be killed if struck by an SUV or pickup truck than by a smaller car, and children were 82% more likely (link). Via David Z / BMJ.

The price of gasoline turns into a political scrum as Trump says some states have $1.98/gallon pricing, while GasBuddy states the lowest average state prices are closer to $2.70/gallon (link). Via CNN / GasBuddy.

Thank you:

Thank you to Anat Bonshtein (link), Jamie Gull (link), Danil Kislinskiy (link) and John Orr (link) for offers of introductions to new founders, investors and friends over the last week.

Trucks portfolio companies mentioned in this issue:

Auriga Space (link), Gatik (link), JetZero (link), Joby Aviation (link), May Mobility (link). View the full portfolio of Trucks companies (link).

Change is easy; improvement is far more difficult (F. Porsche),

Reilly Brennan