Trucks | FoT: Fisker BK, Waabi, Stable L2

FoT is the intelligence arm of Trucks Venture Capital 

Notable:

Dealer ecommerce giant CDK hit by ransomware hacker BlackSuit; over 15,000 dealerships offline or unable to use their full dealer software systems (link). The ransom fee is reportedly $80M, which CDK reportedly plans to pay.

Europe and US have differing views of how to tariff Chinese EVs (link). Related: How China is assisting a European automotive suicide (link). 'Made-in-China EVs headed for Europe will top 500,000 units this year, one out of every four EVs sold in Europe...The reality is that the Chinese are already woven into the fabric of Europe's car markets—and often in partnership with the Europeans themselves.'

ARK's Tesla math: 90% of the company's value is attributed to its potential robotaxi business on 2029 price target (link). Even in ARK's bear case, this translates into just the Tesla Robotaxi business at a $6.3T value (yes, trillionz), or double the value of NVIDIA or Apple or Microsoft today. Why I think this is important to include here isn't because I have suddenly started buying Tesla Robotaxi futures, but rather this is the macro parade music behind which we will likely anticipate a Waymo IPO in the next 18-24 months. As long as Walter (link) doesn't bite Waymo after Tesla's launch. We will have witnessed robotaxi moving from messiah to outcast and back to messiah in a decade.

How investors are thinking about AI impacting robotics (link). 'Will scaling laws hold for performance in robotics? If you answer this question as “yes”, you enter into a third-order forecast of “will robotics be the most valuable category where scaling laws will hold?” ...If you answer the original question “no” then you may be one of the few people in AI who isn’t super bullish on robotics.'

Feds watch growth of knockoff airbags installed into vehicles in postcrash repairs (link). 'Duffy said that often counterfeiters will order a front plate for an air-bag module with a brand’s logo, so it appears new, and then find the rest of the necessary components from auto junkyards. In one case he investigated, Duffy said, the counterfeiter made roughly $200 in profit for each air bag unit it had produced.'

What is a 'Level 2+' vehicle? (link). Via MR. Koopman: 'Level 2+ should be regulated in the same bin as SAE Level 3 systems.'

Video: Ford F-150 Lightning Super Truck Deep Dive (link). Video: bollard crash testing (link). Video: Wayve's PRISM-1 scene reconstruction model (link, link to post). Audio: my interview with Ali Tabibian of GTK on his Cars, Tech, Machines podcast (link). Video: new Bugatti Tourbillon (link).

Longer freight trains drive up the odds of derailment (link). 'Replacing two 50-car trains with a single 100-car train increases the odds of derailment by 11%, according to a new risk analysis.'

For sale: Roger Penske's old dyno control center (link). Via TO.

M&A / Deals / Changes:

Battery recycling startup Princeton NuEnergy raises $30M (link). Led by Samsung.

AV trucking startup Waabi raises $200M (link). Led by Uber and Khosla.

UPS sells Coyote Logistics to RXO for $1.025B (link).

Fisker files for bankruptcy (link). Related: Fisker in talks to sell fleet to leasing business (link).

Vehicle repair automation startup Kinetic raises $21M (link). Led by Menlo Ventures.

EV scooter startup River and battery firm IBC announce investments in Bengaluru district, India (link).

Board & Executive Changes:

Openlane: Randy Altschuler joins board (link).

Featured Jobs:

Master Technician at Verne in San Francisco, CA USA (link).

Lead Embedded Software Engineer at Nauto, remote (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:

Stable Auto launches evaluation tool for Level 2 chargers (link). 'With Stable Evaluate for Level 2 charging, customers can quickly understand whether these upfront costs are worth it based on the location and determine which multi-family buildings to invest in first. When evaluating multi-family buildings in Stable Evaluate, you can quickly determine how many EVs that building likely has now, as well as how many are expected in the future.'

Using Umbra’s Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite feed to spot ships (link).

Looking inside the tiny NFC chip on a Montreal bus ticket (link).

Texas becomes home to the world's largest roadside convenience store: 75,000 square feet (link). 'Buc-ee's features BBQ brisket sandwiches and its signature Beaver Nuggets – as well as the 'world’s cleanest bathrooms' and the 'friendliest' beaver mascot.'

Patents & Patent Applications:

Lucid's patent application for wide field of view augmented reality / heads up display (link).

Statistics / Projections:

1/3 of new car buyers say absence of Apple CarPlay or Android Auto would be a deal-breaker (link). Via Automotive News / McKinsey.

Survey of 8000 vehicle owners on their connected vehicle preferences (link). Via S&P Global. 'For paid functional updates, enhanced navigation, smartphone integration and basic ADAS functionality were highly desirable. About 39% of respondents preferred an annual subscription for these updates.'

After higher standard wages, delivery driver orders drop (link). Via WSJ. 'Uber Eats orders in Seattle fell 45% last quarter from the same period a year earlier after the company imposed a $4.99 fee on each order to cover the city’s new pay requirements.'

The EV rollout is still hindered by the high component costs of producing a vehicle (link). Via Automotive News / Bank of America. ‘According to the report, the average total component cost for producing a U.S. EV is $34,735, nearly double the $17,775 for a global combustion vehicle.’

A new paper in Nature points to Level 4 self-driving vehicles as 36% less likely to be involved in moderate injury accidents and 90% less likely to be involved in a fatal accident (link, link to paper). Via IEEE. Also: ‘Level 4 (Robotaxi) is usually better than Level 1 (Human-driver only), except dawn, dusk and intersections.'

The 'American Made Index' ranks Tesla Model Y, Honda Passport and Volkswagen ID.4 as top three (link). Via Cars dot com. 'Our study ranks 100 vehicles judged through the same five criteria as it’s been since the 2020 edition: assembly location, parts content, engine origin, transmission origin and U.S. manufacturing workforce.'

Thank you:

Thank you to Jemel Derbali (link), Jaan Juurikas (link) and Kersten Heineke (link) for offers of introductions to new founders, investors and friends over the last week.

Trucks portfolio companies mentioned in this issue:

Nauto (link), River (link), Stable (link), Verne (link). View the full portfolio of Trucks companies (link).

See you next week,

Reilly Brennan