automotive
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Feast your eyes on the all-new, all-electric GMC Hummer EV
GMC has a new all-electric version of its classic Hummer oversized SUV. This thing is a beast, as you might expect, with an advertised 350-mile range and a 3-second zero to 60 mph time. It’s a bit ridiculous to be honest, which is kind of what the Hummer has always been about so that makes sense.
Alongside a teaser, GMC released a number of press photos of the 1,000 HP bruiser, so take a look below. It definitely looks like a Hummer – which may or may not be your cup of tea.
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Porsche is researching synthetic fuels to make gas-powered cars sustainable
The road to sustainable vehicles likely ends at electric cars, yet the route to this goal isn’t clear. There are multiple ways to get there, and Porsche is looking at synthetic fuels as a potential path. These so-called eFuels are produced from CO2 and hydrogen. If produced using renewable energy, they can help vehicles powered by internal combustion engines (ICE) become more sustainable before the end of their life.
Earlier this week, Porsche AG’s Detlev von Platen spoke to this alternative fuel at TechCrunch Sessions: Mobility.
Looking at Porsche’s current lineup, it’s easy to see where the automaker is heading: Electric sports cars. Right now, in 2020, the automaker has one electric sports sedan and an electric version of its small SUV coming soon. The automaker has a handful of plug-in hybrids available, too. The automaker says half of its vehicles will be electric by 2025.
“We are seeing a lot of new regulations coming up everywhere in the world,” Detlev von Platen, member of the Executive Board, Sales and Marketing, said at TC Sessions: Mobility 2020. “California is one example. Europe and China will become even more complicated in the future, and we see the transformation coming up very quickly. And to a certain point of time, developing and producing combustion engines and cars around this technology will become even more expensive than a battery vehicle. Things are moving very fast.”
Governments worldwide are using aggressive regulations to push automakers toward an electric future, though that goal doesn’t address the millions of gasoline-powered vehicles already on the road.
Von Platen explains that it’s Porsche’s goal to reach the commitments laid out by the Paris Climate Accord ahead of schedule. To do so means reducing the environmental impact of the entire car industry, and Porsche sees eFuels as a way to reduce the environmental impact of current and future internal combustion vehicles. If produced using renewable energy, it would result in ICE-powered vehicles being powered by a renewable source fuel.
Porsche is in a unique position: 70% of the vehicles it ever produced are still on the road. Their owners are generally enthusiastic and unlikely to trade-in their classic air-cooled Porsche coupes for an electric vehicle. The company sees eFuel as a way to reduce the environmental impact of those vehicles while keeping them on the road.
This new type of synthetic fuel is produced out of hydrogen and CO2. Porsche says that this fuel shares properties with kerosene, diesel and gasoline produced from crude oil in its most basic term.
“This technology is particularly important because the combustion engine will continue to dominate the automotive world for many years to come,” said Michael Steiner, member of the Executive Board, Research and Development, in a statement released in September. “If you want to operate the existing fleet in a sustainable manner, eFuels are a fundamental component.”
Synthetic fuels were tried in the past and gained little long-term traction. Porsche wants to influence this new breed of synthetic fuel specifications to ensure the eFuel works within Porsche’s performance engines. “When E10 came onto the market, the blend had some disadvantages. It must be different this time: it must have advantages,” Steiner said.
“We started a pilot program to talk about the industrialization of this fuel technology to make it cheaper, as it is still quite expensive compared to fossil fuels,” von Platen said. “If this works in the future, we can have something that will increase the speed of creating sustainability besides battery technology.”
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Amazon debuts its first fully electric delivery vehicle, created in partnership with Rivian
Amazon has received delivery of its very first, custom-built EV delivery van — a vehicle built through its partnership with electric transportation startup Rivian. The van doesn’t look too different from existing, traditional fuel and hybrid commercial delivery vans (though there are a lot more rounded edges), but most of the innovation is happening in less obvious places.
In a blog post detailing the vehicle, Amazon outlined some of the unique features of its custom vehicle, including sensor-based highway driving and traffic assist features; exterior cameras that can provide a 360-degree view for the driver via a digital display; a larger interior floor space in the cabin to help with drivers getting to and from the cabin compartment; surround tail lights for better braking visibility for other drivers; integrated three-level shelving and a bulkhead cargo compartment separating door; and finally, of course –built-in Alexa voice assistant integration.
Amazon announced a sizeable investment in Rivian in 2019, when it led a $700 million round for the startup EV maker. The e-commerce giant then announced last September that it was ordering 100,000 of the custom-made electric delivery vans. Rivian also intends to build and ship electric pickups and SUVs to consumers, on top of its commercial vehicle plans.
Amazon plans to ramp deployment of its all-electric fleet form here, starting with 10,000 custom vans on roads globally within the next two years, and then expanding to a total fleet size of that full 100,000 order by 2030, the company says. Rivian, meanwhile, says it has begun a pilot production line run of its Illinois factory, and plans to begin delivery of its SUV starting in June 2021, with shipments of its SUV starting next August.
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Announcing the TC Pitch-Off: Mobility startups
For the past two years, TechCrunch has brought together the best and brightest minds in mobility at our TechCrunch Sessions: Mobility event. This year, we are adding a little extra twist. On October 5, the day before Mobility 2020, TC is hosting a pitch-off — which only ticket holders can access — highlighting disruptive startups in the mobility space. Startups from all over the world applied, only 10 made the cut.
Founders will pitch on the virtual TC Stage for one minute, followed by an intense Q&A with our judges. After all 10 companies have pitched, the illustrious set of judges — Shahin Farshchi (Lux Capital), Natalia Quintero (Transit Tech Lab) and Rachel Holt (Construct Capital) — will select the top five companies that will go on to pitch at the main event on October 7 in front of investors, press and thousands of online viewers.
Check out the featured companies here:
Automotus
BuuPass Kenya Limited
DUCKT
fluctuo
HyPoint
Le Car
Movel AI Pte Ltd
ONO (ONOMOTION GmbH)
PreAct Technologies
Shelf.Network
To see the startups pitching on October 5, you can snag an exhibitor pass for just $25. It’ll get you access to the pitch-off, breakout sessions from ChargePoint and access to visit all of the early-stage mobility startups in the expo for all the days of TC Sessions: Mobility. But if you really want to take it to the next level, get an all-access General Admission ticket for $195 that gives you access to the main stage speakers, networking and a complementary Extra Crunch membership (worth $99). But you’ll need to grab your tickets before Monday, October 5th when prices increase!
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California will require all passenger vehicles sold in the state be zero-emission by 2035
California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order on Wednesday requiring sales of all new passenger vehicles be zero-emission by 2035.
The new order would be a huge boost for electric vehicles, and vehicles using alternative fuels like hydrogen, and could boost a sector that’s already surging in California.
As an announcement from the California governor’s office indicates, the transportation sector is responsible for more than half of all of California’s carbon pollution, 80% of smog-forming pollution and 95% of toxic diesel emissions.
“This is the most impactful step our state can take to fight climate change,” said Governor Newsom, in a statement. “For too many decades, we have allowed cars to pollute the air that our children and families breathe. Californians shouldn’t have to worry if our cars are giving our kids asthma. Our cars shouldn’t make wildfires worse – and create more days filled with smoky air. Cars shouldn’t melt glaciers or raise sea levels threatening our cherished beaches and coastlines.”
After the order, the California Air Resource Board will develop regulations that will mandate 100% of sales of passenger cars and trucks are zero-emission by 2035.
Setting the 2035 target would achieve reductions in greenhouse gases above 35% and an 80% improvement in oxides of nitrogen emissions from cars.
The board will also develop regulations that require operations of medium and heavy-duty vehicles to be fully zero-emission by 2045, where feasible.
Under the order, state agencies in partnership with the private sector will be required to accelerate deployment of affordable fueling and charging options. The order also requires broad accessibility to zero-emission vehicles, according to a statement.
What it won’t require is for Californians who own gasoline-powered cars to give them up or deny car owners the ability to sell their gas-powered cars in the used car market.
With the initiative, California is joining 15 countries that have already committed to phasing out gas-powered cars, according to a statement.
Built into the order is an assumption that zero-emission vehicles will be cheaper and better than fossil fuel-powered cars, but there are significant hurdles — and opportunities before the market gets there.
There’s going to need to be a massive buildout of charging stations and fueling stations for electric and hydrogen powered vehicles. New charging technologies will need to be put in place to enable faster charging, and new financing models will need to be put in place to ensure the kind of accessibility the California government is requiring.
All of these opportunities should have startups champing at the bit, and several companies, like the new electric vehicle manufacturers launching to compete with Tesla, the new charging technology developers and others, will have Newsom to thank for the sudden boost in their valuations.
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Tesla says its battery innovations will deliver its goal of a $25,000 mass market electric car
Tesla held its Battery Day event on Tuesday to discuss a variety of innovations it has developed and is pursuing in battery technology for its vehicles. At the event, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and SVP of Powertrain and Energy Engineering Drew Baglino detailed new anode and cathode technology it’s working on, as well as materials science, in-house mining operations and manufacturing improvements it’s developing to make more more affordable, sustainable batteries — and they said that taken together, these should allow them to make an electric vehicle available to consumers at the $25,000 price point.
“We’re confident we can make a very, very compelling $25,000 electric vehicle, that’s also fully autonomous,” Musk said. “And when you think about the $25,000 price point you have to consider how much less expensive it is to own an electric vehicle. So actually, it becomes even more affordable at that $25,000 price point.”
This isn’t the first time that Musk has talked about the $25,000 price point for a Tesla car: Two years ago, in August 2018, he said that he believed the company would be able to reach that target price point in roughly three years. Two years on, it seems like the goal posts have been pushed out again — fairly standard for an Elon-generated timeline — since Musk and Baglino acknowledged that it would be another two or three years before the company could realize the technologies it presented in sufficient quantities to be produced effectively at scale.
Tesla detailed a new, tabless battery cell design that would help it achieve its goal of reaching 10 to 20 terawatts of global battery production capacity per year. The design offers five times the energy density of the existing cells it uses, as well as six times the power and an overall 16% improvement in range for vehicles in which it’s used.
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Future Teslas will have batteries that double as structure, making them extra stiff while improving efficiency, safety and cost
Tesla has fundamentally redesigned the way that its battery packs integrate into their vehicles, turning them into structural elements of the car, rather than just fuel sources on their own. At Tesla’s Battery Day event on Tuesday, Elon Musk compared this to how commercial aircraft used to load fuel into tanks that were contained within the wings, but that were essentially bolted onto internal structure — later on, they realized much greater efficiencies in how much fuel could be carried, as well as weight and parts usage, by making the wing bodies actual fuel tanks themselves.
“All modern airplanes, the fuel tank, your wing is just a fuel tank and wing shaped,” he said. “This is absolutely the way to do it. And then the fuel tank serves as dual structure, and it’s no longer cargo. It’s fundamental to the structure of the aircraft — this was a major breakthrough. We’re doing the same for cars.”
By turning the battery cell into a structural component of the vehicle, Musk pointed out that they can actually save more mass overall in the car than you would assume on paper if you just took out the structural supports in the battery cells as they currently exist. That’s because the battery itself is doing a lot of that support work — which, he points out, actually makes the overall vehicle safer, which might seem counterintuitive.
Tesla will achieve this by creating a filler that is also a structural adhesive, and that also acts as a flame retardant. It “effectively glues the cells to the top and bottom sheet, and this allows you to do shear transfer between upper and lower sheets,” Musk said.
“This gives you incredible stiffness, and it’s really the way that any super-fast thing works is you create basically a honeycomb sandwich with two phase sheets,” he said. “This is actually even better than what aircraft do because they can’t do this because fuel is liquid.”
The end result of this will be that a structure that enables Tesla’s cars to be much stiffer than any regular cars. That stiffer design is better for safety overall, and also means that the batteries will be more efficient, while also avoiding any “arbitrary point loads” of strain or stress on the battery cell itself.
“It also allows us to use to move the cells closer to the center of the car, because we don’t have […] sort of all the supports and stuff,” he said. “So, the volumetric efficiency of the structural pack is much better than a non-structural pack. And we actually bring cells closer to the center.”
This reduces the potential of side impacts from collisions actually reaching the cells, which means they should be less susceptible to sustaining the kind of damage that can result in battery-related fires. It will also “improve the polar moment of inertia,” Musk said, which basically translates to better overall maneuvering of the vehicle and driving and handling feel.
Finally, there are 370 fewer parts in the structural battery design versus the current Tesla battery cell design, which greatly reduces cost as well as potential failure points. That’s going to add up to a lot of manufacturing savings, per Musk, and will stack with the other battery innovations he unveiled.
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Uber for Business introduces a couple of commuting options to get to the office during the pandemic
Uber for Business, the business side of the consumer ridesharing service, has typically focused on helping companies track their Uber expenses, but during a pandemic, needs have changed. It’s no longer about getting employees to and from the airport or shuttling an important client from the hotel to the office, it’s about getting essential personnel to the office safely, and to that end, Uber introduced a couple of new business commuting options today.
“Uber for Business is really about how we allow organizations of all shapes and sizes around the world to leverage the great consumer technology that Uber makes available, for business purposes,” Ronnie Gurion, global head at Uber for Business told TechCrunch.
While the business side of the house helps employees charge business-related Uber rides to their employers, it can now help them choose a couple of commuting options beyond the standard ridesharing everyone has access to, regardless of who is paying the bill.
For starters, the company is introducing Employee Group Rides. Group might be an overstatement, as it involves two employees in the same area sharing an Uber for the purpose of getting to or from work. It works in a similar fashion to the way Uber Pool worked, except it only involves matching employees at the same company.
In terms of safety, Gurion says that Uber sees this as a “transit bubble” with employees who are working together anyway willing to share a car together. “We’re seeing that companies are finding this option to be more attractive because they are comfortable putting more than one person in the same office in the same car, when they’re going to be in the same office together anyway, once they get to the office. So, it makes things a little more socially distant or creates a social transit bubble, so to speak, to get people to and from the office,” he explained.
Image Credits: Uber
The second option is called Business Charter, and this involves Uber connecting the customer to a third-party fleet partner, who can pick up multiple employees and bring them to the office.
“A company can come and create a commute program with Uber across sedans, SUVs, vans and buses, and based on the employee base and commuting data, it might order 20 sedans and X number of our [larger] vehicles, and decide how to deploy them — and we can do that, and those vehicles will only accept rides from that employer,” Gurion said.
As for commuting during the pandemic, Gurion points out that these programs are being introduced in the EMEA, APAC and North American regions for starters, and that each of these geographies is in different places in terms of COVID. “Not every market looks like the U.S. There are a wide range of situations, but core safety issues are relevant everywhere,” he said.
While Uber has instituted a safety program to help ensure both drivers and passengers are wearing masks, and has devoted $50 million to providing cleaning supplies to drivers, they don’t have a formal testing program in place for drivers, Gurion said. How comfortable employees are with these arrangements will likely depend on individual preferences.
In addition to these commuting options, Uber for Business also offers Uber Eats for Business, a food delivery service geared for business users, and Uber Direct, a package delivery platform.
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Lidar startup Ouster raises $42M in push to grow sales, diversify products
Lidar startup Ouster has spent the past several years expanding and improving its line of sensors as it jostles for a piece of the crowded and competitive market place. Now, Ouster says it has raised $42 million, fresh capital that will be used to fund product development and ramp up sales.
In short: Ouster is keeping the fight alive and there are signs that the San Francisco-based startup is making progress despite some headwinds. The $42 million Series B round didn’t feature any new investors — existing backers Cox Automotive, Fontinalis Partners and Tao Capital Partners all participated — and it was less than its previous raise of $60 million. Ouster, like many others, also reduced its workforce by 10% due to COVID-19, the company confirmed.
However, it’s worth noting that Ouster managed to close the round in the midst of COVID-19 and has continued to increase sales, even as its San Francisco-based manufacturing facility was shuttered temporarily due to a COVID-related government shutdown. The business grew enough to avoid further layoffs and to fully pay all employees and temp workers, according to the company. Ouster has raised $140 million to date.
Ouster wouldn’t share specific revenue numbers, but the company said its 12-month revenue has grown 62%, with third-quarter bookings up 209% year-over-year — a stat that makes sense, considering its business model and the expansion of its product line.
Lidar measures distance using laser light to generate highly accurate 3D maps of the world around the car. Lidar is considered by most in the automated vehicle technology industry a key sensor required to safely deploy robotaxis and other autonomous vehicles (with perhaps the exception of Elon Musk and a few others).
Ouster is taking a different technological and business approach than many of its competitors.
The company’s lasers and photodetectors are printed onto two chips using a standard process to produce integrated circuits (known as CMOS to those in the know). Ouster says this allows it to ditch the more common practice of stacking discrete components on top of each other to reach the desired resolution. Ouster argues that its approach results in a less complex sensor that is more reliable and cheaper.
“Ouster’s digital lidar architecture gives us fundamental advantages that are winning over customers in every market we serve. Digital CMOS technology is the future of lidar and Ouster was the first to invent, build, patent, and commercialize digital lidar. Once our customers experience the resolution and reliability of these sensors at an affordable price, there’s no turning back to legacy analog lidar,” Ouster CEO Angus Pacala said in a statement.
In January, Ouster launched its second-generation lidar product line, which includes three different 128-beam sensors to be used for different purposes, including one designed for navigating urban environments and warehouses. The other two sensors include a mid-range model with a 120-meter range and a 45-degree field of view, and a long-range lidar sensor with a more than 200-meter range for high-speed vehicle automation. All three products are currently shipping to customers and are available in 50 different configurations, according to Ouster.
The company’s business model is also slightly different than many others. Instead of targeting automakers or companies trying to commercialize robotaxis, Ouster has cast a wider net to diversify its business. The company is selling its lidar sensors to robotics, drones, mapping, defense, building security, mining and agriculture companies. The company launched in January its second-generation lidar sensors, which included three new 128-beam models that have different applications. The second-generation line is an improvement from its previous 64-beam models, with better resolution.
The strategy has appeared to pay off. Ouster has doubled its customer base since March 2019, according to the company. Today, Ouster says it has 800 customers across 15 markets, including Konecranes, Postmates, Ike, May Mobility, Kodiak Robotics, Coast Autonomous, the U.S. Army, NASA, Stanford University and MIT. Some of that growth has come from sales to Chinese automation companies such as idriverplus, WhaleAI, Hongjing Drive and qCraft.
Despite the growth, Ouster needs the capital to scale, as designing, manufacturing and selling lidar sensors is an expensive undertaking. Ouster has opened offices in Paris, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Hong Kong and Suzhou to expand global sales and customer service capabilities. It also has two manufacturing facilities. Its San Francisco facility, which opened in March 2019, is primarily used to introduce new products. Production volumes are lower at this facility. Once the product is validated, they’re transferred to Ouster’s contract manufacturer Benchmark in Southeast Asia.
Benchmark is now producing hundreds to thousands of second-generation sensors per month, according to Ouster.
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Chinese EV startup Xpeng Motors raises $1.5 billion in US public market debut
Chinese electric vehicle startup Xpeng Inc. raised $1.5 billion through an initial public offering in the U.S. as investor interest in EVs and clean energy outstripped concerns over escalating tensions between the U.S. and China.
The automaker, which is headquartered in Guangzhou, China and has offices in Silicon Valley and San Diego, said in a filing that it sold 99.7 million shares for $15 each, raising about $1.5 billion. The automaker had originally planned to sell 85 million shares with a price guidance of between $11 and $13.
Shares of Xpeng began trading Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol XPEV.
Xpeng had raised a total of $1.7 billion from investors, including Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba and Xiaomi Corp, prior to its Wall Street debut. In July, the company said it had raised around $500 million in a Series C+ round to further develop electric vehicle models aimed at China’s tech-savvy middle-class consumers.
Moving to the public market gives Xpeng access to a far bigger pool of capital, which it will need to compete against an increasingly crowded EV marketplace in China. Xpeng faces competition from Li Auto, Nio, WM Motor and notably, Tesla, which began producing Model 3 sedans at its new Shanghai factory in December 2019.
SHANGHAI, CHINA – 2019/08/25: Customers experiencing a new car at the Chinese automobile manufacturer Xpeng or Xiaopeng Motors store in Shanghai. (Photo by Alex Tai/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Xpeng has two electric vehicles on the market, the G3 SUV and the P7 sedan. Production of the G3 began in November 2018. As of July 31, Xpeng said it had delivered 18,741 G3 SUVs to customers.
Deliveries of the P7 began in May 2020. The company has delivered 1,966 P7 sedans — a direct competitor to the Tesla Model 3 — as of July 31. Xpeng is also planning a third electric vehicle, which will be another sedan, that will come to market in 2021.
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