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Keep in mind final week when Aurora met a serious milestone — simply squeaking by below its personal deadline — and launched a driverless self-driving truck service? Welp, this week Aurora made headlines once more, however for a shocking change in management.
Co-founder Sterling Anderson, who has been chief product officer, is resigning from his place and the board. No actual phrase on what prompted his resignation, past some feedback he made in the course of the firm’s Q1 earnings name. “Leaving Aurora is without doubt one of the most tough selections I’ve ever made, particularly given the thrilling stage Aurora is at,” he mentioned. “That is exactly what gave me the arrogance that now’s the fitting time.”
He didn’t say precisely the place he was going, both, besides that it will likely be an “thrilling exterior alternative in a senior management position at an iconic world firm.”
I’ll allow you to all place your bets.
Aurora is urgent on with out Anderson. The corporate introduced throughout its earnings name that it’s going to begin sending its self-driving vehicles out at night time and through adversarial climate situations like rain or heavy wind by the second half of 2025. The corporate additionally plans to broaden its driverless trucking route past Dallas to Houston, and into El Paso and Phoenix.
A bit of chicken
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It’s not day-after-day a public firm reverses course and goes personal. However then once more, these aren’t regular occasions. Particularly for any firm caught up within the U.S.-China commerce warfare.
Take Zeekr, as an illustration. One yr in the past, the Chinese language EV firm debuted on the New York Inventory Change. Now, mum or dad firm Geely Auto needs to take Zeekr personal in response to the Trump administration’s concept to kick Chinese language corporations off American inventory exchanges.
Different offers that received my consideration …
Bosch Ventures has a brand new $270 million fund that can proceed its custom of investing in deep tech startups. Managing director Ingo Ramesohl advised TechCrunch the plan is to place extra of its cash into North American startups.
Buyers who beforehand backed Indian Uber rival BluSmart have proposed a plan to inject one other $30 million into the struggling cab-hailing startup, which abruptly halted operations final month. However there’s a catch.
Breathe, a battery software program startup, raised $21 million in a Sequence B spherical led by Kinnevik On-line AB, the corporate solely advised TechCrunch. Lowercarbon Capital and Volvo Automobiles Tech Fund participated.
DoorDash introduced two main acquisitions because it expands into Europe. The corporate agreed to purchase its U.Okay. rival Deliveroo for about £2.9 billion (round $3.87 billion) and individually mentioned it’s shopping for SevenRooms — which supplies CRM, advertising and marketing, and operations software program to assist eating places, inns, and public venues with reservations and visitor administration — for $1.2 billion in money.
In the meantime, Uber was busy this week, buying corporations and investing in them.
Uber elevated its funding into Chinese language autonomous automobile firm WeRide by $100 million as a part of an expanded partnership deal to deliver the service to a different 15 cities over the following 5 years. In a separate deal, Uber additionally acquired an 85% controlling stake in Trendyol Go, the net meal and grocery supply enterprise based mostly in Istanbul, for about $700 million in money.
Notable reads and different tidbits
Autonomous autos
Right here’s a personnel swap I didn’t anticipate. Mo Elshenawy, the previous president and CTO of now-shuttered self-driving automotive firm Cruise, was simply named the chief expertise officer at telehealth and wellness firm Hims & Hers. I spoke to Hims & Hers co-founder and CEO Andrew Dudum, and he mentioned he particularly centered on the AV trade to search out the following CTO. Right here’s why.
Nuro has began testing its AV tech on the Las Vegas Strip. I just lately sat down with co-founder and president Dave Ferguson. Keep tuned for an replace on why the corporate shifted its enterprise mannequin.
Tesla‘s “Robotaxi” and “Cybercab” emblems have hit a number of roadblocks. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Workplace denied Tesla’s try and trademark the time period “Robotaxi” in reference to its autos as a result of it’s too generic. In the meantime, purposes from Tesla for the trademark on the time period “Cybercab” have been halted due to corporations pursuing related “Cyber” emblems.
Uber locked up partnerships with three Chinese language autonomous automobile corporations — Pony AI, Momenta, and WeRide — in a bid to gobble up robotaxi market share within the Center East and Europe. Footnote: These offers are to not function in China.
Waymo introduced it has a brand new 239,000-square-foot manufacturing facility within the Phoenix suburb of Mesa by means of a take care of Magna to construct greater than 2,000 autonomous Jaguar I-Tempo autos. That clearly received a number of consideration. However I used to be most concerned about lastly studying the dimensions of Waymo’s current business fleet, which is now 1,500.
Wayve is making the rounds on the high-profile govt set. You would possibly keep in mind the video of Invoice Gates in one in all Wayve’s autonomous take a look at autos. Now it’s Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson’s turn. P.S. Branson is a Wayve investor. BTW, Fortune Brainstorm held its AI convention in London, and Wayve CEO and co-founder Alex Kendall was there. He had some interesting comments concerning the firm’s end-to-end method and Tesla’s Elon Musk.
Zoox paused its driverless testing program for greater than per week and issued a voluntary recall of its software program following a crash in Las Vegas.
Electrical autos, charging, & batteries
The Cadillac Celestiq EV — yep, that monster — is right here, and contributor Emme Corridor has ideas after spending a day behind the wheel.
It’s earnings season, and the U.S.-China commerce warfare is beginning to depart a scratch on the paint of automakers in every single place. And, nicely, I don’t suppose we’ll be capable to buff it out.
Ford and Basic Motors pulled their steerage for the yr, citing financial uncertainty associated to Trump’s tariffs. In the meantime, Rivian mentioned it can probably ship fewer autos this yr (40,000 to 46,000 EVs) than beforehand forecasted as a result of tariffs and different regulatory adjustments. Reminder: The corporate was already monitoring for its third straight yr with no quantity development earlier than the steerage reduce. There was some excellent news for Rivian, although: It generated gross revenue (yeah I do know, gross revenue isn’t precisely my fave, both). However this met a contractual milestone that unlocked about $1 billion in funding from Volkswagen Group as a part of a three way partnership with the German automaker.
Ford is elevating the worth of the all-electric Mustang Mach-E SUV and the Maverick pickup by as a lot as $2,000 as a result of import taxes Trump is putting on autos made in Mexico.
Lucid Motors has been working by means of some high quality “hiccups” within the early levels of delivering its long-awaited electrical Gravity SUV.
Mitsubishi Motors is in talks with Foxconn to supply an electrical automotive mannequin the Japanese automaker plans to promote in Australia and New Zealand within the latter half of 2026.
Tesla gross sales proceed to droop throughout Europe regardless of an April EV gross sales swell.
Way forward for flight
Joby Aviation appears to be deciding on 2026 for its first business passenger service, based on its first-quarter earnings report. The electrical vertical takeoff and touchdown startup-turned-SPAC was focusing on 2025, then was stating “early 2026.” Now it’s simply 2026, which suggests it may not be early subsequent yr.