Uber cozies up to more AV companies, Canoo loses another founder and Waymo sees potential in teen riders

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The EV industry sure is rough and tumble these days. And it’s affecting every company, from the legacy automakers like Ford to the upstarts. 

Take Polestar, for instance. The EV startup, which is now publicly traded, has had its share of struggles. However, Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath telegraphed a positive “we’re building a self-sustaining company” message during an interview with him at Monterey Car Week. Ingenlath won’t be the one to complete that mission; he is out as CEO, and a replacement has been named. 

Polestar isn’t the only company to go through an executive shake-up. Senior reporter Rebecca Bellan had a scoop this week about Fluid Truck, the startup that was founded to disrupt the commercial vehicle rental industry. The TL;DR: Sibling co-founders — CEO James Eberhard and chief legal counsel Jenifer Snyder — have been ousted in what employees have described as a hostile takeover led by two minority investors on the board. There’s a lot more to the story; check it out here. 

OK, let’s jump into the rest of the news! Vroom!

A little bird

A little bird told us that Joby Aviation has inked a deal with Virgin Atlantic. And it seems that the two companies plan to commemorate the partnership by photographing Joby’s eVTOL in London with Virgin’s crew members. 

When TechCrunch reached out for more information, Joby did not confirm or deny the deal. It’s one that doesn’t come as a huge surprise, given Joby’s other bedfellow at the moment. The eVTOL startup announced a mutually exclusive deal with Delta in the U.S. and U.K. in 2022. Delta owns roughly half of Virgin Atlantic, so bringing that airline into this would align with the nature of Joby’s deal with Delta. 

As part of the deal, Delta’s customers will have access to a premium service that air-taxis them from local vertiports directly to the airport. In exchange, Delta provides vertiport infrastructure needed for Joby’s takeoff and landing services. The deal also included an upfront investment from Delta of $60 million, with an additional $200 million if certain milestones are met. The Virgin Atlantic partnership will likely be similar in scope, but it’s not clear whether the airline is providing additional investment into Joby.

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Deals!

Wayve, the buzzy U.K. startup that earlier this year raised $1.05 billion in a Series C funding round, has caught the attention of numerous investors such as SoftBank Group, Nvidia and Meta, for its self-learning approach to autonomous driving. 

Now it appears Wayve has won over Uber, too. The companies announced a partnership that includes Uber making a strategic investment in Wayve as an extension of the company’s previously announced Series C fundraising round. The companies aren’t sharing what that strategic amount is, but senior reporter Rebecca Bellan does provide a few more details about this deal. 

Side note: The Autonocast, the podcast I co-host with Ed Niedermeyer and Alex Roy, interviewed Wayve co-founder and CEO Alex Kendell recently. Take a listen. 

Other deals that got my attention …

Enteligent, a California startup that has developed solar-powered DC-to-DC chargers for EVs, raised $6 million in a round led by Taronga Ventures. The company has raised $19 million since 2021.

Nickelytics acquired truck-side advertising and fleet graphic services TruckAds for an undisclosed figure.

Swiftly, the transit data platform, acquired data and analytics company Hopthru. Financial terms were not disclosed.

WeRide postponed its IPO. The Chinese AV company was planning to raise around $110 million at a $5 billion market cap.

Serve Robotics, the autonomous sidewalk robot delivery company, closed a $20 million private placement and warrant exercise. The company also generated another $15 million by exercising existing warrants. The move provides Serve with quick cash as it expands commercially. But by issuing new warrants, it could dilute existing shareholders.

Notable reads and other tidbits

Autonomous vehicles

Cruise sure seems to be preparing for a commercial return. The company signed a multi-year partnership with Uber to bring its robotaxis to the ride-hailing platform in 2025. While Cruise didn’t say when exactly customers would see its vehicles on Uber’s platform, a spokesperson told TechCrunch that this partnership will follow the relaunch of Cruise’s own driverless service. 

As Waymo continues to scale, so has the news cycle. Here are a couple stories from this week:

• Waymo is considering a subscription program that would let teens hail one of its cars solo and send pickup and drop-off alerts to their parents, the San Francisco Standard reported.
• Waymo has also started offering riders 24/7 access to curbside pickups and drop-offs at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport terminals 3 and 4.

Oh and I didn’t forget …

Last week, I promised a couple of takeaways from software engineer Sophia Tung’s interview with Waymo Director of Product and Operations Vishay Nihalani, who went on her livestream to talk about the great honk-a-thon, plus lots of other stuff, such as:

• Waymo robotaxis don’t communicate directly with each other when on the road (so no friendly hellos via flashing lights or horns).
• Waymo robotaxis that prepare to leave and then end up circling the parking lot? That’s a canceled ride.
• The company has costs on the brain. “Historically, we talk about scaling responsibly from a safety perspective, but I would add that we are scaling responsibly from a financial perspective as well, and charging is a big piece that we do really need to optimize the charging workflows,” Nihalani said.

Electric vehicles, charging & batteries

Beam Mobility is in the hot seat after The Australian reported the shared e-scooter startup placed hundreds of extra “phantom” scooters on city streets in Australia and New Zealand to avoid paying vehicle registration fees to local governments.

Canoo chief technology officer Sohel Merchant has left the company, two people familiar with his departure told TechCrunch. Merchant was one of the members of Canoo’s founding team that created the startup in late 2017. 

Tesla’s Supercharger network is still unavailable to non-Tesla EVs more than a year after major automakers, including Ford and GM, struck deals to access the chargers, the NYT reported. 

Miscellaneous

Lyft is following in Uber’s footsteps by launching a rider verification program.

The Port of Seattle, which also operates the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, was hit with a “possible cyberattack.”

This week’s wheels

I spent a week in a 2024 Nissan Leaf SV Plus, and for $37,815 (including the destination fee) this was a mixed bag. The Nissan Leaf actually starts much lower, but the one I drove was equipped with the bigger 60 kilowatt-hour battery, which provided about 212 miles of range.

This is one of the more affordable options in the EV market today, so I didn’t expect any luxury touches. Still, any car over $30,000 should have a few things the Leaf lacked — like a backup camera with high resolution. 

And while the Leaf provided a bit of punch off the line and even kept up with some kitted out Hondas on my typical mountain test drive, it wasn’t the most dynamic, best-handling EV I’ve been in. But I suppose the Leaf simply isn’t that kind of car.  

The Leaf did suit my everyday needs, though, and charging at home was easy. My big complaints were less-than-comfy seats, a user interface that made me thankful it had Apple CarPlay, and the gear selector, which felt more novelty than functional. 

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. Future vehicles include some e-bikes and the GMC Sierra EV and the Chevrolet Equinox EV.