Transportation
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Daimler invests in lidar company Luminar in push to bring autonomous trucks to highways
Daimler’s trucks division has invested in lidar developer Luminar as part of a broader partnership to produce autonomous trucks capable of navigating highways without a human driver behind the wheel.
The deal, which comes just days after Daimler and Waymo announced plans to work together to build an autonomous version of the Freightliner Cascadia truck, is the latest action by the German manufacturer to move away from robotaxis and shared mobility and instead focus on how automated vehicle technology can be applied to freight.
The undisclosed investment by Daimler is in addition to the $170 million that Luminar raised as part of its merger with special purpose acquisition company Gores Metropoulos Inc. Luminar will become a publicly traded company through its merger with Gores, which is expected to close in late 2020.
Daimler is taking two tracks on its mission to commercialize autonomous trucks. The company has been working internally to develop a truck capable of Level 4 automation — an industry term that means the system can handle all aspects of driving without human intervention in certain conditions and environments such as highways. That work has accelerated since spring 2019 when Daimler took a majority stake in Torc Robotics, an autonomous trucking startup that had been working with Luminar the past two years. Lidar, the light detection and ranging radar that measures distance using laser light to generate a highly accurate 3D map of the world around the car, is considered a critical piece of hardware to deploy automated vehicle technology safely and at scale.
The plan is to integrate Torc’s self-driving system, along with Luminar’s sensors, into a Freightliner Cascadia truck as well as build out an operations and network center to run automated trucks. Daimler Trucks’ and Torc’s integrated self-driving product will be designed for on-highway hub-to-hub applications, especially for long-distance, monotonous transport between distribution centers, according to Daimler.
Meanwhile, Daimler Trucks is developing a customized Freightliner Cascadia truck chassis with redundant systems to allow Waymo to integrate its self-driving system. In this case, the software development stays in house at Waymo; Daimler is just concentrating on the chassis development.
This dual approach puts Daimler’s ambitions at center stage, which is to have series-production L4 trucks on highways globally. The deal also provides a clearer view of Luminar’s strategy of focusing on what its founder Austin Russell believes are the most likely and shortest paths to commercialized automated vehicles, and in turn, a profitable company.
“Our focus has really been always centered around highway autonomy use cases, which are specifically applicable to passenger vehicles as well as trucks,” Russell said in a recent interview, adding that the aim is to have a product that you can put into series production in a cost-effective capacity.
Luminar has already publicly announced one deal with an automaker to pursue the passenger vehicle use case. Volvo said in May it will start producing vehicles in 2022 that are equipped with lidar and a perception stack developed by Luminar that the automaker will use to deploy an automated driving system for highways. This deal with Daimler locks in the second use case.
“I absolutely do believe that autonomous trucking is an incredibly valuable business model that’s going to be larger than robotaxis and probably closer to being on par with consumer vehicles for the foreseeable future,” Russell said.
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Outrider raises $65 million to bring its autonomous tech to distribution yards
Outrider, a startup aiming to bring its autonomous technology to the nerve center of the supply chain, has raised $65 million in funding just eight months after coming out of stealth. The Series B round was led by Koch Disruptive Technologies and brings its total funding raised to $118 million.
Other existing investors increased their investments, including NEA, 8VC and Prologis Ventures, according to the company. New investors included Henry Crown and Company and Evolv Ventures.
The company’s aim to automate distribution yards doesn’t get the same kind of attention as the more public-facing robotaxis that other companies are pursuing. But it could be as impactful and potentially lucrative to the company that pulls it off. Distribution yards are where goods make the transition from long-haul trucks to warehouses, and eventually the consumer. These hubs of economic activity rely on humans to make repetitive, manual tasks using diesel-powered yard trucks. There are some 400,000 distribution yards located in the United States, a number that provides an idea of the potential size of the opportunity.
Image Credits: Outrider
The Golden, Colorado startup previously known as Azevtec developed a three-part system that includes an autonomous electric yard truck, software to manage the operations and site infrastructure. The total system automates the manual aspect of yard operations, including moving trailers around the yard as well as to and from loading docks. The system can also hitch and unhitch trailers, connect and disconnect trailer brake lines and monitor trailer locations.
Outrider touts the dual benefits of its electric and autonomous system. The company notes that its electric yard trucks are ideal for autonomy due to their reduced maintenance, lower operating costs and reliable clean power. Andrew Smith, the company’s founder and CEO, says disruptions caused by COVID-19 has highlighted the need for this kind of automated distribution yard technology.
Outrider, which now employs 110 employees, has completed “multiple” pilot programs, including one with Georgia-Pacific, and expanded its customer base since coming out of stealth in February.
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E-bike subscription service Dance closes $17.7M Series A, led by HV Holtzbrinck Ventures
Three months on since the former founders of SoundCloud launched their e-bike subscription service, Dance today is announcing the close of a $17.7 million (€15 million) Series A funding round led by one of the larger European VCs, HV Holtzbrinck Ventures.
Founded by Eric Quidenus-Wahlforss (ex-SoundCloud), Alexander Ljung (still at SoundCloud as chairman) and Christian Springub (ex-Jimdo), Dance has ambitions to offer its all-inclusive service subscription package into expanded markets across Europe and eventually the U.S. Dance is currently operating the invite-only pilot of its e-bike subscription in Berlin, with plans for a broader launch, expanded accessibility and availability and new cities next year.
Rainer Märkle, general partner at HV Holtzbrinck Ventures, said in a statement: “The mobility market is seeing a huge shift towards bikes, strongly fueled by the paradigm shift of vehicles going electric. Unfortunately, the majority of e-bikes on the market today have some combination of poor design, high upfront costs, and cumbersome maintenance. We analyzed the overall mobility market, evaluated all means of transport, and crunched the numbers on all types of business models for a few years before we found what we were looking for. Dance is by the far the most viable future of biking, bridging the gap between e-bike ownership and more ‘joyful’ accessibility to go places.”
E-bikes tend to be notoriously expensive to purchase and a hassle to repair. That said, startups like VanMoof and Cowboy have brought an Apple -esque business model to the market, which is fast bringing the cost of full ownership down.
Most commuters are put off cycling the average 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) commute but e-bikes make this distance a breeze. Dance sits in that half-way house between owning an expensive bike and having to hunt down a rentable e-bike or electric scooter close to your location.
Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought individual, socially distanced transport into sharp relief. U.K. sales of e-bikes have boomed, seeing a 230% surge in demand over the summer. This has happened at the same time as EU governments have put in more than 2300 km of bike lanes, with the U.K. alone pledging £250 million in investment.
Quidenus-Wahlforss said the startup has been “inundated with positive responses from around the world since we announced our invite-only pilot program.”
Dance’s subscription model includes a fully assembled e-bike delivered to a subscriber’s door within 24 hours. This comes with maintenance, theft replacement insurance, a dedicated smartphone app, concierge services, GPS location tracking and unlocking capabilities.
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Waymo and TuSimple autonomous trucking leaders on the difficulty of building a highway-safe AI
TuSimple and Waymo are in the lead in the emerging sector of autonomous trucking; TuSimple founder Xiaodi Hou and Waymo trucking head Boris Sofman had an in-depth discussion of their industry and the tech they’re building at TC Mobility 2020. Interestingly, while they’re solving for the same problems, they have very different backgrounds and approaches.
Hou and Sofman started out by talking about why they were pursuing the trucking market in the first place. (Quotes have been lightly edited for clarity.)
“The market is massive; I think in the United States, $700-$800 billion a year is spent on the trucking industry. It’s continuing to grow every single year,” said Sofman, who joined Waymo from Anki last year to lead the effort in freight. “And there’s a huge shortage of drivers today, which is only going to increase over the next period of time. It’s just such a clear need. But it’s not going to be overnight — there’s still a really long tail of challenges that you can’t avoid. So the way we talk about it is the things that are hardest are just different.”
“It’s really the cost and reward analysis, thinking about building the operating system,” said Hou. “The cost is the number of features that you develop, and the reward is basically how many miles are you driving — you charge on a per mile basis. From that cost-reward analysis, trucking is simply the natural way to go for us. The total number of issues that you need to solve is probably 10 times less, but maybe, you know, five times harder.”
“It’s really hard to quantify those numbers, though,” he concluded, “but you get my point.”
The two also discussed the complexity of creating a perceptual framework good enough to drive with.
“Even if you have perfect knowledge of the world, you have to predict what other objects and agents are going to do in that environment, and then make a decision yourself and the combination knows is very challenging,” said Sofman.
“What’s really helped us is a realization from the car side of the of the company many, many years ago that in order to help us solve this problem in the easiest way possible, and facilitate the challenges downstream, we had to create our own sensors,” he continued. “And so we have our own lidar, our own radar, our own cameras, and they have incredibly unique properties that were custom designed through five generations of hardware that try to really lean into the kind of most challenging situations that you just can’t avoid on the road.”
Hou explained that while many autonomous systems are descended from the approaches used in the famous DARPA Grand Challenge 15 years ago, TuSimple’s is a little more anthropomorphic.
“I think I’m heavily influenced by my background, which has a tinge of neuroscience. So I’m always thinking about building a machine that can see and think, as humans do,” he said. “In the DARPA challenge, people’s idea would be: Okay, write a dynamic system equation and solve this equation. For me, I’m trying to answer the question of, how do we reconstruct the world? Which is more about understanding the objects, understanding their attributes, even though some of the attributes may not directly contribute to the entire self-driving system.”
“We’re combining all the different, seemingly useless features together, so that we can reconstruct the so-called ‘qualia’ of the perception of the world,” continued Hou. “By doing that we find we have all the ingredients that we need to do whatever missions that we have.”
The two found themselves in disagreement over the idea that due to the major differences between highway driving and street-level driving, there are essentially two distinct problems to be solved.
Hou was of the opinion that “the overlap is rather small. Human society has declared certain types of rules for driving on the highway … this is a much more regulated system. But for local driving there’s actually no rules for interaction … in fact very different implicit social constructs to drive in different areas of the world. These are things that are very hard to model.”
Sofman, on the other hand, felt that while the problems are different, solving one contributes substantially to solving the other: “If you break up the problem into the many, many building blocks of an AV system, there’s a pretty huge leverage where even if you don’t solve the problem 100% it takes away 85%-90% of the complexity. We use the exact same sensors, exact same compute infrastructures, simulation framework, the perception system carries over, very largely, even if we have to retrain some of the models. The core of all of our algorithms are, we’re working to keep them the same.”
You can see the rest of that last exchange in the video above. This panel and many more from TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 are available to watch here for Extra Crunch subscribers.
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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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See what’s new from ChargePoint, Wejo, Waymo and Planet M at TechCrunch’s mobility event next week
We’re in the final run up to TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 on October 6-7, and the great stuff just keeps on coming. We’ve stacked the two-day agenda with plenty of programming to keep you engaged, informed and on track to build a stronger business. You’ll always find amazing speakers — some of the most innovative minds out there — on the main stage, but don’t forget about the breakout sessions.
Dramatic pause for a pro tip: Don’t have a pass yet? Buy one here now, before prices go up on October 5. TIP: You can check out some of the breakout sessions, q&a sessions, startup mobility pitches and the expo when you get the Expo Ticket for just $25.
The smaller breakout sessions, led by top experts in their field, let you dig into specific topics, ask questions and make connections. A lot of excitement and startup magic can happen at the breakout sessions.
“I enjoyed the big marquee speakers from companies like Uber, but it was the individual presentations where you really started to get into the meat of the conversation and see how these mobile partnerships come to life.” — Karin Maake, senior director of communications at FlashParking.
Before we share the breakout session topics, we have another exciting bit of news. We’re hosting pitch sessions for early-stage startup founders who exhibit in the expo at TC Sessions: Mobility. Each startup gets five minutes to pitch to attendees in a breakout session. Remember, this conference has a global reach — talk about visibility! Want to pitch? Buy an Early Stage Startup Exhibitor Package before sales close on Friday.
Alrighty then…let’s look at some of the breakout sessions waiting for you at TC Sessions: Mobility 2020.
Tuesday, October 6
10:00 am -10:50 am PDT
Software Is Revolutionizing the Driver Experience and Driving Mass Electrification – Software in EVs enables a shift from buying a car to investing in an experience. Hear how it’s driving adoption, revolutionizing behavior & keeping up w/ demand. Brought to you by ChargePoint
10:25 am -10:45 am PDT
Main Stage: Driving the Mobility Revolution with Connected Car Data – Learn from Wejo’s VP of Partnerships about the future of mobility and how connected car data impacts the world of autonomous, electric and shared vehicles. Brought to you by Wejo
10:55 am – 11:15 am PDT
Main Stage: Designing Driverless: A Look into the Waymo One Experience – Waymo’s head of ux research and design gives an inside look into their fully driverless service experience and its design. Brought to you by Waymo
11:00 am – 11:15 am PDT
Q&A Session w/ Reilly Brennan, Amy Gu and Olaf Sakkers
12:15 pm – 12:30 pm PDT
Q&A Session w/ Danielle Harris, Avra van der Zee and Dmitry Shevelenko
12:30 pm -1:20 pm PDT
Mobility Startup Demo Pitch Session – Part 1
Wednesday, October 7
9:00 am – 9:50 am PDT
Mobility Startup Demo Pitch Session – Part 2
10:00 am – 10:50 am PDT
Mobility Startup Demo Pitch Session – Part 3
10:55 am – 11:15 am PDT
Main Stage: Public-Private Partnerships: Advancing the Future of Mobility – Join us to learn how the public and private entities partner together to shape the future of mobility with the next generation of transportation solutions. Brought to you by Planet M
11:00 am – 11:20 am PDT
Q&A Session w/ David Estrada, Melissa Froelich, Jody Kelman and Prashanthi Raman
12:15 pm – 12:30 pm PDT
Q&A Session w/ Ben Bear, Fredrik Hjelm
Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Mobility 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.
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Final week to score $50 student passes to TC Sessions: Mobility 2020
Class is about to be in session, students. If you’re passionate about mobility and transportation tech and hungry to learn from the visionaries, makers and investors who are building the future today, don’t miss out on TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 on October 6-7.
We support you, the next generation of mobility tech leaders, so take advantage of our $50 student pass — a $145 savings. But don’t delay. The price increases on October 5.
TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 offers two days packed with 1:1 interviews and panel discussions with the people at the top of game — the leaders, movers and shakers who continue to push beyond what seems possible. You won’t just hear from them, you’ll engage with them during a series of Q&A breakout sessions.
Whether you’re focused on micromobility, connected data, EVs or regulatory trends, you’ll find it — and much more — across the main stage, breakout sessions and sponsored sessions. Here’s a taste of what to expect. Be sure to study the event agenda and start strategizing your schedule now.
Driving the Mobility Revolution with Connected Car Data: Bret Scott, Wejo VP, discusses the future of mobility and how connected car data impacts the world of autonomous, electric and shared cars.
Software Is Revolutionizing the Driver Experience and Driving Mass Electrification: Software in EVs enables a shift from buying a car to investing in an experience. ChargePoint CEO Pasquale Romano discusses how it’s driving adoption, revolutionizing behavior and keeping up with demand.
Uber’s City Footprint: Uber touches many aspects of the transportation ecosystem — autonomous vehicles, food delivery, trucking and traditional ride-hailing. Director of Policy, Cities & Transportation Shin-pei Tsay discusses Uber’s place in cities and how she navigates various regulatory frameworks.
This virtual conference draws a global audience and thousands of attendees. Talk about the perfect place to build your network — an essential part of any successful career. Find that dream internship or exciting employment opportunities and explore more than 40 early-stage mobility startups in the expo area.
Take advantage of CrunchMatch, our free AI-enhanced networking platform. It’s an easy-to-use tool to find and connect with the people who can help you advance your startup aspirations. Stay focused and organized as you schedule 1:1 meetings, meet founders, pitch investors, discuss your resume and otherwise impress the pants off influential people.
Class is in session on October 6-7. Join your community, dazzle the experts and build a firm foundation for your future at TC Sessions: Mobility 2020. Purchase your student pass before the price increases on October 5, and save a chunk of cash.
Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Mobility 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.
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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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Last day to save on passes to TC Sessions: Mobility 2020
The final countdown to early-bird savings is in play, and you have mere hours left to save $100 on passes to TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 (October 6-7). The early-bird offer expires — and prices go up — today, September 11 at 11:59 p.m. (PT). Why pay more than necessary? Buy your pass now and keep more money in your wallet.
Whether you’re already part of the mobility revolution or just exploring the possibilities within this rapidly changing industry, Mobility 2020 is designed with you in mind.
“I’m a serial entrepreneur with two mobility companies, and TC Sessions: Mobility was the perfect place to explore opportunities for both. We attended to connect with potential clients who need mobile applications for their businesses. And we also went to learn more about the micromobility landscape in the U.S.” — Parug Demircioglu, CEO at Invemo and partner at Nito Bikes.
You’ll hear from and engage with some of the industry’s leading voices. The visionaries, makers and investors building the future and changing the way we move everything around the world. Check out the agenda here.
“TC Sessions: Mobility exceeded my expectations in terms of useful content. Every panel discussion I attended, every interaction I had was relevant to my work or to my daily life — because we don’t stop living at 5 p.m.” — Jens Lehmann, technical lead and product manager, SAP.
You’ll spend two days diving deep into mobility and transportation tech, trends and regulatory realities. Explore and connect with more than 40 early-stage mobility startups exhibiting in our virtual expo. And — because no one goes far alone — CrunchMatch, our AI-powered platform, helps you expand and strengthen your network with people who align with your business goals.
“The networking at TC Sessions: Mobility is terrific. Our company’s building momentum in the U.S. market, and the opportunity to meet and talk with all the players is very important. The CrunchMatch platform made it easy to connect, and I used it to schedule 22 meetings.” — Melika Jahangiri, vice president at Wunder Mobility.
And then there’s the newest addition to TC Sessions: Mobility — Pitch Night, which kicks off the evening of October 5. Read the details here, and if you’re interested in participating, submit an application here by September 15.
So many outstanding reasons to attend TC Sessions: Mobility 2020, and one compelling reason to beat the deadline. Buy your pass before 11:59 p.m. (PT) tonight, and you’ll save $100.
Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Mobility 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.
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