Notable reads and other tidbits Autonomous vehicles Baidu, the Chinese internet giant, and autonomous vehicle company Pony.ai have received permits to provide driverless ride-hailing services to the public on open roads in Beijing. Pony.ai also was awarded a permit in Guangzhou to operate 100 robotaxis as traditional taxis. Ford CEO Jim Farley hinted during the company’s first-quarter earnings call that its interested in expanding its partnership with autonomous vehicle technology company Argo AI to focus on middle mile deliveries. General Motors expects expenses for its autonomous driving subsidiary Cruise to about $2 billion this year. The Indy Autonomous Challenge racecar, which was programmed by team PoliMOVE from Politecnico di Milano and the University of Alabama, set a new land speed world record of 192.2 miles per hour at the historic Kennedy Space Center. Michigan State University introduced the Karsan Autonomous e-ATAK bus, an electric autonomous vehicle that will run on campus. The project is through a collaboration with the Michigan Office of Mobility and Electrification, bus manufacturer Karsan and San Francisco-based AV company ADASTEC. Mobileye has begun testing its self-driving vehicles in Miami and Stuttgart. It’s unclear just how many vehicles are in either test fleet. WeRide is launching its Robosweeper, a mass-produced self-driving sweeper vehicle, in China. The company is gearing up for a large-scale road test in May with a fleet of more than 50 vehicles to be conducted in Guangzhou. Earnings Ford reported a multibillion dollar loss in the first-quarter due to an eye-popping write-off on the value of its stake in Rivian, an EV company that has seen its stock drop by nearly 70% since its IPO. Ford also revealed its supply chain strategy and expressed a positive outlook for 2022 backed by its efforts the past few years to secure battery and EV manufacturing in-house and serious demand in its EV lineup. In a separate yet related note, Amazon also reported a massive loss due to its Rivian holding. General Motors' first-quarter earnings report and accompanying analyst call Tuesday highlighted the company's grand ambitions for electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles — and the money it is willing to put behind them. Three items stuck out to me and reporter Jaclyn Trop: its $2B spending plan for Cruise, a proposal to tie the compensation packages of highest-ranking executives to EV quality and sales targets and its low-cost EV plans. Electric vehicles, batteries and charging Ford held a splashy event celebrating the launch of production of its new F-150 Lightning EV. During that event, CEO Jim Farley said Ford will build a second EV truck. The government of Saudi Arabia, which is connected to the kingdom's Public Investment Fund that owns 61% of Lucid Group, agreed to buy 100,000 of the automaker’s electric vehicles over the next decade. Vehicle-to-grid and vehicle-to-home charging — also called bidirectional charging — have long been the stuff of demonstration programs. TechCrunch contributor Jim Motavalli explores whether bidirectional EV charging is ready for the home market? West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin criticized a potential expansion of the federal EV tax credit, calling it “ludicrous.” Instead, he argued that the money should be used for the development of the hydrogen. Elon Musk Sorry, y’all this guy was in the news so much this week that he is getting his own section. Elon Musk announced The Boring Company would attempt to build a working hyperloop and less than a week since The Boring Company raised $675 million at a $5.7 billion valuation. A day after the hyperloop announcement, Musk tweeted that the company plans to begin "full-scale" testing of hyperloop this year. A judge rejected Musk’s attempt to terminate a 2018 settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that requires oversight of some of his Tesla-related tweets. Meanwhile, a Delaware judge sided with Musk $13 billion lawsuit brought by Tesla shareholders, which accused the executive of coercing the electric vehicle company's board into buying SolarCity back in 2016. While the court found that Musk "was more involved in the process than a conflicted fiduciary should be," it ultimately ruled in favor of the "technoking" on all counts. Shareholders still have the option to file an appeal. In-car tech Nissan has tapped Luminar to help it develop a new ADAS system that it hopes will drastically reduce accidents. The automaker expects its new tech will be available on every new model by 2030. People Hertz hired Ned Ryan as chief product development officer. Ryan, who most recently was at Ford, is a serial entrepreneur. He launched in 2013 a flexible rideshare financing company called Breeze that was purchased by Ford in 2016. He also founded Canvas, a vehicle subscription service that was acquired by Fair.com at the end of 2019. Passport, a transportation software and payments company, hired D. Burt Arrington as general counsel and corporate secretary. Arrington previously worked at the law firm of Squire Patton Boggs (US) LLP. Nuvocargo, a logistics startup focused simplifying U.S.-Mexico cross-border trade, hired Jay Gerard as head of customs. Gerard has more than 20 years of logistics and operational management experience and was most recently Global Customs Director, North America, at Flexport. Waze hired Harris Beber as its chief marketing officer to lead all global partnerships and marketing. Harris most recently worked at Vimeo, where he scaled the company’s of 260M+ video professionals, businesses, and brands and helped take the company public in 2021. He previously served as CMO at The Nature’s Bounty Company, and held various senior marketing positions at Amazon, Shutterfly and 1-800-Flowers.com. In 2010, he sold his retail eCommerce business, Giftback. |
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