Lyft ‘opens a can of whoop ass’ on surge pricing, Tesla’s Dojo explained and Saudi Arabia pumps $1.5B into Lucid

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Anyone paying even a little bit of attention to Tesla has probably heard about Dojo. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has referenced Dojo repeatedly over the years, oftentimes noting that the AI supercomputer is essential to the company’s future. 

But what is Dojo really? TechCrunch reporter Rebecca Bellan dug into what is supposed to be the cornerstone of Tesla’s AI ambitions. Check out her explainer here.

There’s more, of course, to read about beyond Elon Musk and Dojo. Let’s dive into the news. 

A little bird

A little bird dropped us a few tidbits recently about Monarch Tractor, the startup developing electric autonomous tractors. It seems Monarch’s leadership team is going through quite a bit of change. We’ve learned that Monarch’s chief revenue officer Kent Carroll left in August; chief commercial officer Sam Abidi and VP of product Danny Beck left in June; and Daron Hovanessian, who led product design, left in July. Abidi and Carroll were at Monarch for only a year. 

Their departures could mean anything — we’re not here to speculate, as there is always a bit of churn in the AV industry and tech sector as a whole. But it does come at a curious time of layoffs and new funding. 

Monarch Tractor recently raised $133 million in a Series C funding round co-led by agri-food tech impact firm Astanor and HH-CTBC Partnership L.P., an affiliate fund of Foxconn. The new round values the startup at more than $500 million. Monarch CEO Praveen Penmetsa told TechCrunch last month that recent layoffs were “less than” 15% of Monarch’s 250- to 300-person workforce and were part of a necessary reshuffling as the young company looks to support its growth.

Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at [email protected], Sean O’Kane at [email protected] or Rebecca Bellan at [email protected]. Or check out these instructions to learn how to contact us via encrypted messaging apps or SecureDrop.

Deals!

Lucid Motors might have set a new sales record for its electric luxury sedan in the second quarter — results that brought in $200 million — but that doesn’t mean the EV startup is in a comfy financial position. Lucid lost $643 million the second quarter and is burning through cash as it pushes to bring its second EV, the Gravity SUV, to market. 

In short: Lucid needs money. Enter the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, which happens to own 60% of Lucid stock. The country’s sovereign wealth fund committed another $1.5 billion, with half coming in the form of a private placement and the other half as a loan facility. 

As senior reporter Sean O’Kane notes, the deal further deepens the ties between Lucid and its majority owner, which has already committed to buying at least 50,000 of its EVs in the coming years and is helping the company build a brand-new factory in the Kingdom.

Side note: This is the second time Lucid has turned to Saudi Arabia for more money since Lucid’s CEO Peter Rawlinson told the Financial Times in a March 2024 interview that he was wary of being overreliant on the Kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund. 

Other deals that got my attention …

3V Infrastructure, an EV charging infrastructure company, raised up to $40 million from an affiliate of Greenbacker Capital Management.

Aurora Innovation, the self-driving technology startup that went public via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company in 2021, recently arranged to sell up to $420 million worth of shares. The young company ended up exceeding its goal and raised $483 million. CEO Chris Urmson posted a blog that offers a bit more context on where the company is headed. 

Reminder: The newly raised funds come a little over a year since Aurora completed a capital raise of $820 million from a public and concurrent private offering of its stock. 

H3X, a startup that makes electric motors, raised $20 million in a Series A round led by Infinite Capital, with participation from Hanwha AM, Cubit Capital, Origin Ventures, Industrious Ventures, and Venn10 Capital, as well as from existing investors Lockheed Martin Ventures, Metaplanet, Liquid 2 Ventures and TechNexus.

Notable reads and other tidbits

Autonomous vehicles

Waymo is adding another 10 square miles to its robotaxi service area to include cities surrounding San Francisco. The move, which adds Daly City, Broadmoor and Colma, pushes its total commercial service territory to about 55 square miles. Waymo is also expanding its service territory in Los Angeles by another 16 square miles. 

Remember last week when I highlighted a story about how Nuro is gearing for a comeback? The AV firm recently secured approval from California regulators to expand its driverless testing area. Now it’s giving a few hints on social media. The company posted on X that its self-driving system — dubbed the Nuro Driver — is being tested on highways. That tweet reminded me that Nuro acquired self-driving truck startup Ike way back in 2020. 

Electric vehicles, charging & batteries

Rivian reported Q2 earnings, and the results show financial losses have crept up as the EV maker pushed out the last of its first-generation R1 trucks and SUVs in favor of newer, more cost-efficient versions. The cash burn is notable and confirms what some of us have been thinking: The $5 billion deal with Volkswagen Group came at the perfect time. 

Ride-hailing and the gig economy

Uber and Lyft posted second-quarter earnings this week, and there were a few notable highlights, including that both ride-hailing companies brought up autonomous vehicles. 

Lyft reported its first quarter of GAAP profitability — but that success was tempered somewhat by a soft forecast for the third quarter. Lyft also announced plans to pilot a new feature that will let a rider purchase a monthly subscription “that caps the price for a specific route at a specific time. CEO David Risher said it’s part of the company’s broader plan to “open up a can of whoop ass on primetime” — the word Lyft uses to refer to surge pricing.

Meanwhile, Uber (which reported strong second-quarter results, with gross bookings and net profit both up) highlighted the success of its autonomous vehicle effort. The company said the number of trips performed by autonomous vehicles rose 6x from a year earlier. Biggy caveat: Uber didn’t provide a baseline for that figure. 

This week’s wheels

TechCrunch senior reporter Sean O’Kane has been tooling around on the Pedego Moto. Here are his thoughts on the new e-bike:

I don’t have a ton of experience with e-bikes, which is one of the reasons I was eager to put some miles on Pedego’s new Moto. 

Over the last few weeks, I’ve used it almost exclusively as a daycare shuttle. It’s a great option for the ride, which is just a few miles and normally takes around 10 minutes by car. I can make the trip on the bike in basically the same amount of time. 

My three-year-old loves the experience, and also that the bike kind of resembles a motorcycle, and I can’t blame him. It’s a sharp-looking bike, similar to the styling of Super73’s bikes (and its many copycats) but with a step-through design, making it easier to hop on and off without the risk of kicking my son in the face. 

The shocks (front and rear) make for a surprisingly smooth ride, whether that’s on the brick streets (we live near a historic district) or the rough roads on the way to daycare (the soil here is very sandy, which leads to a lot of uneven or broken asphalt.)

The Moto is heavy, which makes it a little tricky to move around, and I imagine the weight plays into how slow it can be off the line using just the throttle (even when the 750W motor is set to the highest speed setting). But those are trade-offs I’d probably be happy to make in favor of just how solid the bike performs otherwise. The giant tires always help it feel planted, and the ride is even more stable when my kid is on board. 

I’ve liked using it enough that I’ve been trucking my kid to and from his school on 90-degree days, in high humidity — which is no small accomplishment.

What is “This week’s wheels”? It’s a chance to learn about the different transportation products we’re testing, whether it’s an electric or hybrid car, an e-bike or even a ride in an autonomous vehicle.