Trucks | FoT: Stack AV, Gatik, Hilton

FoT is the intelligence arm of Trucks Venture Capital 

Notable:

Automated vehicle national rollouts: every single complaint about any AV operator implicates all operators (link). The AV deployment paradox is that the success of any individual operator is unique, but the failure of any operator is fundamentally intertwined with all the others within the category. This means that any issue with Cruise ultimately has implications for Waymo and vice versa, deserved or not.

Cruise says it is 'days away' from receiving NHTSA exemption for no-steering wheel Origin AV-ready vehicle (link). 'GM’s regulatory approval likely hinges on how the company responds to questions surrounding the safety of its current crop of autonomous vehicles.'

Mozilla: Automakers have the worst privacy containment policies of all consumer categories (link). 'Most (84%) of the car brands we researched say they can share your personal data -- with service providers, data brokers, and other businesses we know little or nothing about. Worse, nineteen (76%) say they can sell your personal data. A surprising number (56%) also say they can share your information with the government or law enforcement in response to a 'request.' This is a good reason for consumers to eventually buy an Apple car.

Tesla's FSD 12: out with rules, in with nets (link). 'Instead of determining the proper path of the car based on rules...we determine the car’s proper path by relying on a neural network that learns from millions of examples of what humans have done.' Morgan Stanley in this week's research report: 'We believe that Dojo can add up to $500bn to Tesla's enterprise value, expressed through a faster adoption rate in Mobility (robotaxi) and Network Services (SaaS).'

The end of bad idea subscription grifts: BMW gives up on heated seat subscriptions (link). The hard lesson of the automaker subscription acid trip is that consumers will only pay extra for features they haven't previously seen in vehicles.

Which ADAS features are best deployed for drivers with declining critical driving skills? (link). 'Based on research conducted by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI), we have developed a table that provides recommended ADAS technologies for those who are starting to experience declines in 28 functional abilities.'

BNSF track inspector whistleblower exposes long-standing safety issues as the railroad company (link). 'A jury later found BNSF retaliated against Sanders after he claimed he was fired for reporting too many defects.'

Delaware man who police blocked from warning drivers of speed trap wins $50,000 judgment (link). 'A judgment was entered Friday in favor of Jonathan Guessford, 54, who said in the lawsuit that police unlawfully prevented him from engaging in peaceful protest by standing on the roadside and holding up a small cardboard sign reading Radar Ahead!'

Video: Philipp Willigmann of Vontier discusses the multi-energy future required for transportation (link). Video: Harry’s Garage review of AM V8 with 7.0-liter conversion (link). Video: footage of Monza in 1955, first use of banked oval at the track (link). Video: Joe Lowry talks lithium on the money of mine podcast (link).

'I wired up my bike's GPS to order me pizza during a gravel race' (link).

M&A / Deals / Changes:

Stack AV, launched by former Argo founders Bryan Salesky and Peter Rander along with Brett Browning, raises $1B in funding and comes out of stealth (link). Led by Softbank. This story is significant for at least four major reasons: 1) It is the return of Salesky and Rander after Argo's collapse -- top-tier founders can still marshall enormous resources even in a soft market 2) It follows the robotaxi to trucking path; What do robotaxi founders do for their follow up company? The answer is always more structured, and frequently trucking -- see also Chris Urmson with Aurora 3) it is the return of Softbank mega funding rounds (although not its Vision Fund division), which are usually 9 figures or greater 4) this has a positive tailwind for other trucking AV firms. It is likely that we see Waymo re-think its AV trucking reduction plans over the coming months, with this news being a significant ingredient.

Battery recycling startup Ascend Elements raises $460M (link). Led by BlackRock and Temasek.

Mobileye and Valeo launch partnership on imaging radars (link). 'Valeo will lead the system design of the new imaging radar product by integrating Mobileye’s groundbreaking imaging radar technology and corresponding software and algorithms embedded in the Mobileye Radar chipset into Valeo’s automotive software and hardware radar solutions.'

UK AR startup Envisics raises $100M (link). Led by M&G Investments.

Warehouse robotics startup Mujin raises $85M (link). Led by SBI Investments.

Car sharing startup EV Mobility acquired by Autonomy (link).

Ex-Amazon exec who took over logistics startup Flexport is out, founder back in (link).

Board Changes:

Woven by Toyota: John Absmeier and Hajime Kumabe join board, James Kuffner leaves board (link).

America's Car-Mart: Doug Campbell promoted to CEO, joins board (link).

Magnachip Semiconductor: Melvin Keating leaves board (link).

New Stuff:

Tyson Foods announces new AV route deployments with Gatik (link). 'Initially, Tyson will run a fleet of autonomous Gatik trucks 18 hours a day on roughly 12-mile long routes in the Rogers and Springdale, Ark. Area. However, Simmons says the company has identified 40 locations across the U.S. where running Gatik robotrucks would work week, freeing up 40 drivers who normally work 11 hours a day.'

Hilton to install up to 20,000 Tesla universal wall connectors at 2,000 hotels (link). The installation would 'create the largest overnight electric vehicle charging network within hospitality industry.'

Xona Space Systems launches its ecosystem of positioning and timing companies that support Pulsar (link).

UL Solutions opened a North America Advanced Electric Vehicle Charging Laboratory in Northbrook, IL (link).

Hesai and Webasto collaborate on LIDAR-integrated roof modules (link).

Lithium found near Nevada-Oregon border could be the largest supply in the world (link). Via Diego. 'A new study, published in the journal Science Advances, estimates that the McDermitt Caldera, a volcanic crater on the Nevada-Oregon border, harbors a colossal 20 to 40 million metric tons of lithium. Based on these newest figures, the caldera dwarfs the amount of lithium in even Bolivia's salt flats, home to around 23 million tons.'

Waymo is using insurance data about self-driving cars to bolster its safety case (link). 'According to the comparisons, Waymo’s vehicles are safer than human-driven ones. The company’s driverless vehicles, in which there was no safety driver behind the steering wheel, reduced the frequency of bodily injury claims by 100 percent, compared to Swiss Re’s human baseline of 1.11 claims per million miles. That was based on over 3.8 million miles of fully autonomous driving by Waymo in California and Arizona.'

New York City mandates electric ride-hailing vehicles by 2030 (link).

Patents & Patent Applications:

Uber's patent application shows vehicle localization through sensor fusion (link).

Featured Jobs:

Functional Safety Manager at Aurora Labs in Tel Aviv-Yafo, Tel Aviv District, Israel (link).

Computer Vision / Data Science at Ottometric in Novi Sad, South Bačka District, Serbia (link).

Battery Systems Engineer at Zitara in San Francisco, CA, USA (link).

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

Statistics / Projections:

Low churn: 89% of current connected vehicle services subscribers resubscribe (link). Via S&P Global.

Dampening demand for EVs has led to a 10% drop in prices of batteries used for EVs and energy storage in August (link). Via Reuters / TrendForce.

US EV divide: In the bottom 10 states for EVs, the pace of adoption sunk 24% from a year earlier, but in the top 10 states, pace of adoption grew 1% (link). Via Automotive News / JD Power.

Thank you:

Thank you to Sunjay Dodani (link) and Matt Hall (link) for offers of introductions to new founders, investors and friends over the last week.

Trucks portfolio companies mentioned in this issue:

Aurora Labs (link), Gatik (link), Ottometric (link), Xona Space Systems (link), Zitara (link). View the full portfolio of Trucks companies (link).

See you next week,

Reilly Brennan