Trucks | FoT: Cruise, Continental, Archer

FoT is the intelligence arm of Trucks Venture Capital 

Notable:

GM officially ended support for its Cruise AV effort, in a shift away from robotaxi toward personally-owned vehicles (link). This is paradoxically happening just at the time that we are seeing the scale up of Waymo, the continued development of Zoox and May Mobility in driver-out routes, and however you feel about what's going on at Tesla. Since Cruise's pedestrian crash last October, I read into GM's new strategy as going for a Pepsi to Waymo's Coca-Cola -- and that GM just had to hang on until Waymo's IPO (2026? 2027?) to revalue its project as something between 30-40% of Waymo's value. Depending on how things look for Waymo in a few years, this could have meant Cruise's market cap at something like $20-30B: not as big as they originally thought, but a multiple of the money invested. No longer. GM reaffirms its legacy of exceptional engineering that misses market timing, to be captured and grown by an alternate player (see also: EV1, OnStar, EREVs,). From my partner Jeff Schox, who was an early investor in Cruise: 'Is it that GM’s board doesn’t have the courage to continue investing in the R&D (which is what happened with the EV1) or that GM knows it no longer has the technical/AI leadership to pull this off after the departure of Kyle Vogt (and losing a huge portion of their software team)?' This is GM is hunkering down and pulling back on the aggressive bets it made in the last decade; a preview to come that the next GM CEO is likely a CFO today.

Trump transition team reportedly looks to scrap vehicle car crash reporting requirements (link). It's unclear what level of automation this would target, if at all.

These owners love their Tesla, but not the company's CEO (link). 'It is a situation fairly unique to Tesla that the company’s products are viewed, by some, as a direct endorsement of the company’s chief executive. Buying an Amazon Kindle does not necessarily signify that you’re a Jeff Bezos fan. And less than a decade ago, being a Tesla owner didn’t necessarily imply an endorsement of Mr. Musk’s public persona as much as it signaled an interest in electric cars.'

Supreme Court will take up a challenge related to California’s vehicle emissions standards (link). 'The high court will not be reviewing the waiver itself, but instead will look at a preliminary issue, whether fuel producers have legal standing to challenge the EPA waiver.'

Australian Lambo driver first to be ticketed under new high-powered vehicle laws (link). Via NG. 'Motorists in South Australia need a special license for cars with over 276 kW (370 hp) per tonne. Drivers need to complete an online course and a test to be certified to drive high-performance vehicles. Locals can also be fined AU$ 5,000 (~$3,200) for tuning off a car’s traction control system.' The future of supercars is a thorny blend of geo-defined regulations and the harmonic mean of every Armani Exchange consumer.

Understanding company creation in 'China speed' (link). 'In the West, we (usually) try to spec the plant to market demand. In the PRC, you secure the hard-to-get license and build the plant. The bigger the better. Then you hustle like crazy to sell your cars. Sell them to anyone. Anywhere.'

Waymo's market share within its San Francisco map reportedly now equivalent to Lyft's (link). Lyft CEO David Risher says the data is inaccurate (link) but doesn't clarify. Except when wait times are too long, Waymo is becoming the No.1 option for a lot of intra-city rides for just about everyone I know in San Francisco.

Understanding the downfall of new Chinese brand Jiyue, a joint venture of Geely and Baidu (link). 'Originally known as Jidu Auto, the company started life as a joint venture between Baidu with a 55% share and Geely 45%. Largely due to the company’s inability to get relevant production licenses for the car, the company restructured into Jiyue Auto, where the majority of ownership (65%) came under Geely and 35% under Baidu....Jiyue’s CFO, Liu Jining, is missing together with the company’s books. It seems that his family is also missing with him.'

Amazon's ecommerce project officially lifts off: 48 states, in partnership with Hyundai dealers (link). No haggling, all-in pricing and Amazon's experience reportedly includes the trade-in evaluation and price.

Video: Ford Mustang GTD sets sub 7-second Nurburgring time (link, link to lap). Video: WSJ's report on Tesla Autopilot crashes, featuring Dr Phil Koopman and Missy Cummings (link). Video: Discussing the Cruise shut down with Bryan Reimer, Junko Yoshida and Phil Koopman (link). Video: behind the scenes of the Senna series filming (link). Video: Christmas tree lighting in East Oakland (link). Video: beautiful drift coach (link).

M&A / Deals / Changes:

German conglomerate Continental gets board approval to spin off its automotive group (link).

Boston battery startup Nanoramic raises $44M (link). Led by GM Ventures and Catalus Capital.

Vehicle / grid charging startup Weavegrid raises $28M (link). Led by Woven Capital.

VTOL startup Archer raises $430M, announces partnership with Anduril for military-focused vehicle (link).

SEA car financing startup CarDekho raises $60M (link).

UAE auto parts startup BuyAnyAutoPart raises $750k (link). Led by Galadari Brothers and 6G Capital.

New York logistics startup Cofactr raises $17M (link). Led by Bain.

Board & Executive Changes:

Mercedes-Benz Group: Mathias Geisen, Oliver Thöne, and Olaf Schick join board of management; Sabine Kohleisen, Renata Jungo Brüngger, and Hubertus Troska to retire from board (link).

Serve Robotics: Lily Sarafan joins board (link).

Qualcomm: Baaziz Achour promoted to CTO, succeeds James Thompson (link).

Lockheed Martin: John Aquilino joins board (link).

Johnson Controls: Simone Menne to depart board (link).

Delta Air Lines: Christophe Beck joins board (link).

Wabtec: Juan Perez joins board (link).

Dana: Nora LaFreniere joins board (link).

Featured Jobs:

Senior Software Engineer, Embedded Flight Sensors at Joby Aviation in Santa Cruz, CA USA (link).

MobilityJobs is the No.1 job board for auto & transportation companies (link). If you are a startup you can use the job board for free standard listings — just enter 'Trucks' at checkout.

New Stuff:

Hyundai’s electric air taxi startup Supernal is moving its HQ from DC to California (link).

After IPO, China's Pony plans AV robotaxi expansion (link). 'James Peng, CEO and founder of Guangzhou-based Pony, said it planned to expand its robotaxi fleet from about 250 to at least 1,000 vehicles in 2025, with lower production costs and larger service areas in the so-called first-tier cities of Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Shenzhen.'

EV installer Treehouse announces nationwide rollout of its Carmax partnership (link). 'Our partnership enables CarMax customers to leverage Treehouse to streamline the purchase and installation of a home charger with a transparent, frictionless experience.'

NYC wants you to stop taking traffic cam selfies (link).

Patents & Patent Applications:

Ford's patent application shows augmented reality controls for teleoperators (link).

TuSimple's patent application for a side mirror housing for LiDAR (link).

Statistics / Projections:

In a global survey of EV owners, 92% plan to buy another EV for their next car (link). Via Headlight / Global EV Drivers Alliance.

U.S. airlines collected more than $12 billion from seat fees from 2018 to 2023 (link). Via WSJ / US Senate subcommittee report.

In November 2024, the average transaction price for a new vehicle in the US was $48,724, an increase of $699, or 1.5%, from the same period last year (link). Via Cox.

San Francisco, Paris and Singapore top urban transportation rankings (link). Via Bloomberg / UC Berkeley and Oliver Wyman research.

Vehicle speeds and front end height increase pedestrian risks (link). Via IIHS. 'Higher vehicle front ends increased the likelihood of both moderate and serious pedestrian injuries. At 27 mph, the average speed of all 202 crashes, a median-height car had a 60% chance of causing moderate injuries to a pedestrian and a 30% chance of causing serious injuries. In comparison, a median-height pickup — with a front end 13 inches higher than that of a median car — had an 83% chance of causing moderate injuries and a 62% chance of causing serious injuries.'

EPA's report finds the average model year 2023 vehicle produced 319 grams per mile (g/mi) of CO2, 18 g/mi less than the previous model year, and the lowest emission rate on record (link to PDF). Via US EPA. 'Real-world fuel economy increased by 1.1 mpg to a record high 27.1mpg.'

US new car EV registration rose 5% in October vs the same period the previous year (link). Via Automotive News / S&P Global Mobility.

Since December 2019, US consumers have seen a 51% rise in auto-insurance prices (link). Via Washington Post / BLS.

Thank you:

Thank you to Matt Kozlov (link), Quincy Nichols (link), Christian Noske (link), Blair Schlecter (link) and Evangelos Simoudis (link) for offers of introductions to new founders, investors and friends over the last week.

Trucks portfolio companies mentioned in this issue:

Joby Aviation (link), Treehouse (link). View the full portfolio of Trucks companies (link).

Explorers have to be ready to die lost (RCH),

Reilly Brennan