Trucks | FoT: River, Joby, Starship

FoT is the intelligence arm of Trucks Venture Capital 

Notable:

Waymo's bad week: one of their vehicles attacked, set on fire by crowds in SF (link); vehicle hits bicyclist in SF (link). Waymo's statement on the bicyclist incident (link): 'The cyclist was occluded by the truck and quickly followed behind it, crossing into the Waymo vehicle’s path. When they became unoccluded, our vehicle applied heavy braking but was not able to avoid the collision.' Waymo needs to understand that using a phrase like 'became unoccluded' does not help their cause; it sounds like an engineering intern was pressed into communications duty. Dr. Phil Koopman's notes on the incident response (link); Dr. Missy Cummings in a comment on the post: 'How about Waymo releasing the video so the public can judge for themselves?’

The effect of front-end vehicle height on pedestrian death risk (link). 'A 10 centimeter increase in front-end height causes a 22% increase in pedestrian fatality risk.'

Is Tesla a car company, AI company or energy company? (link). 'These days, Musk’s tone has changed. He has been advocating against corporate values such as ESG, or environmental, social and corporate governance, that aim to encourage investments in the kinds of goals he once touted. And Musk appears to be distancing himself from some of the green movement that had so embraced him years ago. At a public event in December, Musk described the alarm over climate change as somewhat overblown in the short term.'

Canada declares Flipper Zero testing device as public enemy No. 1 in car-theft crackdown (link). Via Weans. 'In reality, it has become too easy for criminals to obtain sophisticated electronic devices that make their jobs easier. For example, to copy car keys. It is unacceptable that it is possible to buy tools that help car theft on major online shopping platforms.'

Daimler Truck and Linde release open source hydrogen fueling standard for heavy trucks (link).

Indonesia's surplus of nickel was supposed to trigger an EV supply chain boom (link). 'The 'dirty nickel' reputation is threatening the very economic opportunities Indonesia covets. In October, nine U.S. senators signed a letter opposing a proposed free-trade agreement to source critical minerals from Indonesia, citing environmental and safety concerns. Without a free-trade deal, EV batteries with substantial quantities of Indonesia-processed nickel won’t be eligible for a major U.S. tax credit.'

Chargepoint's new Express Plus Power Link 2000 is a DC charging station capable of delivering up to 500 kW, twice as fast as Tesla's V3 Supercharger -- but only one vehicle can handle it: the Rimac Nevera (link).

Uber ended 2023 with a $1.1B operating profit, its first full year in the black (link). 'With an average of about 26 million Uber trips taken a day last year, operating profit for 2023 reached $1.1 billion compared to a $1.8 billion loss the previous year. Net profit for the year hit $1.9 billion versus an enormous $9.1 billion loss in 2022.'

Previously unreported 2023 Cruise incident involved near-miss with 7-year old boy in cross walk (link).

Video: what if there were no rules in F1? (link). Video: 11-sec Camry drag racing sleeper (link). Video: roundup of EV ads from the 2024 Super Bowl (link).

'There is no product with a higher information density than the Federal Aviation Administration’s aviation maps' (link).

M&A / Deals / Changes:

Indian EV two-wheeler startup River raises $40M (link). Led by Yamaha Motor.

French EV fleet startup Guided Energy raises $5.2M (link). Led by Sequoia Capital and Dynamo Ventures.

Croatian mobility networking startup Project 3 raises $107M (link). Led by TASARU Mobility Investments.

Indian vehicle financing startup OTO raises $10M (link). Led by GMO Venture Partners.

Sidewalk robot startup Starship Technologies raises $90M (link). Led by Iconical and Plural.

Venture funds under fire for investing in Chinese chip making companies (link). 'Funds supplied by the five firms — GGV Capital, GSR Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Walden International — went to more than 150 Chinese companies, according to the report, which was released Thursday by both Republicans and Democrats on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.'

GM hires Kurt Kelty in a new position as VP of Batteries (link). Via MJ. Kelty was previously at Sila and Tesla.

Tesla made nearly $2B in 2024 from regulatory credit revenue -- from other carmakers failing to sell enough EVs (link). 'That brought the cumulative total Tesla has raked in since 2009 to almost $9 billion.'

Infrastructure firm FiberLight invests $20M into connected Texas highway corridor (link).

Former Apple engineer who stole Project Titan trade secrets sentenced to prison (link).

Board Changes:

O'Reilly Automotive: Jay Burchfield retires from board (link).

Mister Car Wash: Atif Rafiq joins board (link).

Forward Air: Gil West joins board, Tom Schmitt departs as Chairperson and CEO, George Mayes promoted to Chairperson (link).

New Stuff:

Geely launches low-earth orbit satellite network for vehicle positioning (link).

Joby Aviation to launch air taxi service in UAE, six years of exclusive operations in Dubai (link).

Lubelogger is a 'self-hosted, open-source vehicle service records and maintenance tracker' (link, link to Github page).

Daihatsu promises to spend 40% more time on vehicle development after certification testing scandal (link).

Hackers earn $1.3M for Tesla, EV charger, infotainment exploits at Pwn2Own Automotive conference (link).

Oregon State and DARPA show that one person could 'supervise' a large number of automated robots (link, link to PDF). 'A multidimensional workload algorithm that estimates the overall workload based on five components of workload was used to analyze the results. While the swarm commander’s workload estimates did cross the overload threshold frequently, the swarm commander was able to successfully complete the missions, often under challenging operational conditions.' Not clear exactly how the term 'supervise' is defined.

Tesla's updated iPhone app gets ultra wideband support (link). 'It promises more reliable and secure use of phones as digital keys than Bluetooth does because UWB’s precision tracking lets the car know exactly where the key is, which also helps protect against replay spoofing attacks.'

Hyundai says its first EV plant will open this year to gain the $7,500 US tax credit (link).

Patents & Patent Applications:

Waymo's patent application shows psychomotor vigilance testing for AV remote monitor workers (link).

Ford's patent application shows conductive exterior paint which reduces aerodynamic drag (link).

Featured Jobs:

Firmware Engineer at Aperia Technologies in San Mateo, CA USA (link).

Electromagnetic Design Engineer at Auriga Space in Long Beach, CA, USA (link).

Program Manager at Skyryse in El Segundo, CA, USA (link).

MobilityJobs is the No.1 job board for auto & transportation companies (link). New: any startup can now post standard jobs for free. Just use the code 'Trucks' at checkout.

Statistics / Projections:

Retail sales of new-energy cars in China, which include electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, rose 102% in January to 668,000 units (link). Via WSJ / China Passenger Car Association.

Boeing vs Airbus commercial jet deliveries by year since 2013 (link). Via JSx.

Apple's AV test program ran over 450,000 miles in California between December 2022 and November 2023 (link). Via Washington Post / California Department of Motor Vehicles.

Used EV prices in the US fell 30% on average last year (link). Via Automotive News. 'Most of that is attributed to price adjustments on the new side. We saw it almost live when Tesla cut prices on their vehicles.' I read a comment on BaT this weekend that called EV price drops as the 'electric realignment.'

Thank you:

Thank you to Jordan Giebas (link), Matt Kozlov (link), Eli Promisel (link), Tobias Salzig (link) and Rohit Sharma (link) for offers of introductions to new founders, investors and friends over the last week.

Trucks portfolio companies mentioned in this issue:

Aperia Technologies (link), Auriga Space (link), Joby Aviation (link), River (link), Skyryse (link). View the full portfolio of Trucks companies (link).

See you next week,

Reilly Brennan