Trucks | FoT: EGO, Northvolt, Tenstorrent

FoT is the intelligence arm of Trucks Venture Capital 

Notable:

Due to rebate loopholes, leasing is the cheapest way for US consumers to get an EV (link). 'Leasing an EV can save drivers more than $400 per month compared to leasing a comparable gasoline vehicle or buying an EV or combustion engine vehicle.'

The cordless power tool brand EGO announced its modular batteries would work with a new electric mini bike, its first vehicle (link). Via Ryan M. This is significant because instead of thinking of new vehicle forms growing up from the traditional bicycle supply chain, or growing down from automaker, this is an entirely new vector -- your power tool battery commitment (and lock-in) becomes the place where you explore new vehicles, and EGO can sell the vehicle cheaper because the consumer already has made the battery commitment and probably has a few of them in their garage. What if EGO or the power tool brand behemoths (which have become battery-moated customer retention businesses) grow up to make a small car, and then when the batteries are even better make a full-size vehicle? What if your loyalty is to the battery/charging system, not the vehicle brand?

Ford, GM, Stellantis face possible strike as UAW authorizes move (link). 'Final votes are still being tabulated. The vote does not guarantee a strike will be called, only that the union has the right to call a strike if a deal is not reached before September 14.'

Senior auto executives are commenting that going all-in on battery investing is a mistake (link). 'I don’t believe there will be any competitive edge on battery technology,' said one top European director, adding 'the logical thing to do for any carmaker would be to leave battery supply to a group of specialists and treat it as a commodity.'

China's tangled web of manufacturing and supply nearly guarantees its leadership position in EVs (link). 'If things turn out as projected — and China is quite good at meeting long-term targets — production costs for a new battery plant in China are expected to come down from $60 million/GWh currently to $50 million/GWh by 2030, with huge impacts on the prices of battery packs. Today, China already has a roughly 30% cost advantage over Europe and the U.S., with an average battery pack priced at $127 per kWh.'

What the 3 most popular cars in history have in common: low price, consistent design and inviting serviceability by the owner, (link). 'The Ford Model T sold 16.5 million between 1908 and 1927. The Volkswagen Beetle sold 21.5 million between 1938 and 2003. The Lada Classic from Russia sold 18 million between 1970 and 2012.'

Are abandoned green projects a necessary part of the cycle, or a sign of oversupply? See China's abandoned EV fields (link). 'At a different site, near a river and along a deserted tram track, around 1,000 EVs sat gathering dust. Some had stickers from Ledao Chuxing, a ride-sharing company which shut down earlier this year. Others bore branding that indicated they belonged to Caocao Chuxing, a ride-hailing service owned by Hangzhou Youxing Technology Co.' Also: thousands of old wind turbine blades pile up in West Texas (link). Via Diego.

Video: India becomes the fourth country to land on the moon (link). Video: the little known $4B tunnel beneath Chicago (link). Video: the making of 'Days of Thunder' (link). Video: why the new EGO release of a mini bike is so important (link). Video: Tokyo by train (link).

Kosher to hail an automated vehicle on Shabbat? San Francisco rabbis weigh in (link). 'It may seem that an autonomous vehicle, if pre-programmed, could possibly meet the same requirements as a Shabbat elevator.'

M&A / Deals / Changes:

Michigan car repair startup Goodhood Auto Club raises $2.6M (link). Led by Bullish.

EV charging startup Electric Era raises $11.5M (link). Led by HSBC.

Canadian chip startup Tenstorrent raises $100M (link). Led by Samsung and Hyundai.

Swedish battery maker Northvolt raises $1.2B to expand into North America and Europe (link). Led by BlackRock.

German car software testing firm PikeTec acquired by Synopsys (link).

Board Changes:

Advance Auto Parts: Shane O’Kelly named CEO and joins board (link).

Hyzon Motors: George Gu leaves board; Erik Anderson promoted to chairman of board (link).

New Stuff:

Xona Space Systems partners with Lockheed Martin for security for its PULSAR services (link).

Engineers from Australia find a way to make concrete 30% stronger by mixing it with spent coffee grounds (link). This was the first time I realized spent coffee grounds are acronymized as SCG.

Baidu introduces autonomous shuttle service at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport (link).

Polestar 4 to get Mobileye's Chauffeur eyes-off, hands-off ADAS (link).

Baidu Maps receives regulatory approval for advanced driver assistance maps in 134 Chinese cities (link).

Cambridge, MA legalizes sidewalk EV charging (link). 'One of the things that we wanted to be able to do is charge from home, but we don't have a driveway...We had a choice; we can sell the car or buy a bigger house that had a driveway in it, or we could just snake a cable over the sidewalk and charge the car.'

Prettymapp is a webapp and Python package to create beautiful maps from OpenStreetMap data (link).

All of the 8,291 license plates in America (link).

Tesla, Rivian endorse right-to-repair deal covering telematics data (link).

Patents & Patent Applications:

Ford's patent application shows vehicle and external camera interaction (link).

BMW's patent application shows three-wheeled cargo ebike (link).

Featured Jobs:

Software Engineer - Platform at Quadric in Burlingame, CA, USA (link).

Account Executive, Class I Railroads (Remote) at RailVision (link).

MobilityJobs is the No.1 job board for auto & transportation companies (link).

Statistics / Projections:

The average electric car puts 2.24 times more stress on roads than its gasoline ICE vehicle (link). Via Wards / Telegraph / University of Leeds.

Chicago's scooter pilot is growing, but ridership lags in areas that were a focus for the program (link). 'Only 36% of the dockless scooter rides originated in the equity zone.'

Autonomous vehicle software used to detect pedestrians is unable to correctly identify dark-skinned individuals as often as those who are light-skinned, with a 7.5% difference (link). Via Techexplore / King's College in London and Peking University in China.

From 2008-2017, the average annual cost of vehicle collisions with moose, deer, and elk totaled $87 million in Montana, the second-highest in the country (link). Via Billings Gazette / State Farm.

Understanding racial disparity in EV adoption and infrastructure (link). Via University of Maryland. 'We identify that Black respondents are 3.7 times more sensitive to charging prices, 2.5 times more influenced by charging station availability, and 2.4 times more affected by charging times than the White reference group when considering the purchase of an EV.'

Thank you:

Thank you to William Bergh (link), Jeff Brandes (link), Courtney Fellowes (link), Jim Gibbs (link), Rupak Nag (link), Sherwin Prior (link), Santosh Sankar (link) and Victoria Waters (link) for offers of introductions to new founders, investors and friends over the last week.

Trucks portfolio companies mentioned in this issue:

Quadric (link), RailVision (link), Xona Space Systems (link). View the full portfolio of Trucks companies (link).

See you next week,

Reilly Brennan