Hyundai antes up $1B for AV startup Motional and Elon unplugs the Tesla Supercharger workforce

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EV startup Fisker laid off extra workers to “protect money” as chapter inches ever nearer; ride-hailing firm Ola reduce about 180 jobs and ousted its chief govt, Hemant Bakshi, merely 4 months after appointing him to the publish; and lidar firm Luminar slashed its 700-person workforce by 20% as a part of a restructuring to undertake an “asset gentle” enterprise mannequin.

Oh, after which there was Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who axed the automaker’s world Supercharger community workforce. That perplexing choice comes simply as non-Tesla EV drivers achieve entry to the community.

That’s to not say your complete transportation sector was surrounded by financial storm clouds. There have been brighter moments as nicely. Let’s go test it out!

A bit chicken

Within the fallout from Tesla’s nice Supercharger culling, we’ve spoken to a number of little birds, together with those that had been laid off and folk working at different automakers. As I discussed above, Elon Musk gutted Tesla’s world Supercharger group of about 500 folks. Insiders at a number of totally different automakers — all of that are adopting Tesla’s charging tech — stated they didn’t see this coming. “Shocked” and “surprised” had been the commonest phrases I heard.

On the worker entrance, there was a scarcity of communication from human sources within the hours instantly following the mass layoff. Some informed me they and their fellow former co-workers had not obtained details about severance and that communication had stopped altogether. A number of of these people had obtained severance emails by Friday. All the folks I communicated with had been nonetheless struggling to grasp why Musk would reduce the Supercharger workforce — a corporation that’s basic to Tesla and its EV gross sales. Others surmised solely Elon and possibly the previous head of the Supercharger workforce, Rebecca Tinucci, would ever know the reply.

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Offers!

It’s been a minute since we heard of an autonomous automobile startup elevating a considerable sum of money — or heck any cash in any respect. That every one modified this week when Motional scored a necessary multi-million-dollar win, courtesy of Hyundai.

Hyundai’s whole dedication is $1 billion, however there are necessary particulars. Right here’s the way it breaks down. Hyundai invested $475 million instantly into Motional as a part of a broader deal that features shopping for out three way partnership associate Aptiv. Hyundai is spending one other $448 million to purchase 11% of Aptiv’s widespread fairness curiosity in Motional.

The short backstory: Motional was shaped in 2019 as a $4 billion three way partnership between Hyundai and Aptiv. Motional has spent the previous a number of years plugging away at its autonomous automobile tech, working towards a aim of launching a robotaxi service utilizing driverless Hyundai Ioniq 5 autos in 2024. As Motional and Hyundai obtained nearer — the businesses introduced plans in November to co-develop production-ready variations of the all-electric Ioniq 5 robotaxi — it appears Aptiv started to grasp its personal monetary limitations. By January, Aptiv chairman and CEO Kevin Clark flagged that the corporate would cut back its possession curiosity in Motional and cease allocating capital to the enterprise as a result of excessive price of commercializing a robotaxi enterprise and the lengthy highway forward to earnings.

The choice, whereas not notably shocking to the business insiders I spoke to, nonetheless put Motional and Hyundai in a sticky spot. Would Hyundai step up? Would exterior buyers step in? Hyundai answered the decision.

My query is will Motional, with the blessing of Hyundai, hunt down different buyers? That may all come right down to how a lot capital Motional is burning by and whether or not it continues to chase the identical robotaxi targets. In that case, it appears the corporate will finally want extra capital.

Different offers that obtained my consideration …

LiNova Power, a California-based startup growing polymer cathode batteries, raised $15.8 million in a Sequence A funding spherical led by Catalus Capital, which was joined by Saft, a subsidiary of TotalEnergies, Chevron Know-how Ventures and a syndicate of buyers.

Rivian was awarded an eye-popping $827 million incentives bundle from the state of Illinois, funds that might be used to construct out manufacturing traces for its next-generation EV, the R2.

Viking Holdings, the luxurious cruise operator backed by personal fairness agency TPG and the Canada Pension Plan Funding Board, raised $1.54 billion in its IPO.

X Shore, a Swedish electrical boat maker based in 2016, raised €8.5 million in new funding from a number of unnamed current backers, together with founder Konrad Bergström.

Notable reads and different tidbits

ADAS

The Nationwide Freeway Visitors Security Administration opened an investigation into Ford’s hands-free driver-assistance system, BlueCruise, after it was discovered to be energetic throughout two latest crashes that killed a number of folks.

The NHTSA made one other massive transfer within the sector and finalized a brand new Federal Motor Automobile Security Commonplace that can make automated emergency braking, together with the flexibility to detect and robotically brake for pedestrians, customary on all passenger automobiles and lightweight vans by September 2029. The company stated the protection customary is predicted to considerably cut back rear-end and pedestrian crashes. Now, the NHTSA isn’t selecting the expertise automakers have to make use of. Plenty of pc imaginative and prescient and lidar corporations have reached out to me to notice the way it may very well be useful to their enterprise fashions.

Autonomous autos

TC contributor Tim Stevens takes us behind the scenes of the primary Autonomous Racing League occasion in Abu Dhabi that pitted a self-driving automobile towards a Components 1 driver. His take? Sure, there have been struggles; he additionally noticed a number of progress.

Electrical autos, charging & batteries

Keep in mind final yr when Henrik Fisker proudly debuted two prototypes designed to catapult his eponymous EV startup into the mainstream? TC reporter Sean O’Kane realized the engineering agency that helped develop these autos is suing Fisker for $13 million in damages. Learn extra to study this lawsuit, plus a number of others.

This week’s wheels

Picture Credit: Emme Corridor

I turned the wheel over to TC contributor Emme Corridor this week for a take a look at drive of the brand new all-electric Acura ZDX Sort S. You possibly can learn the complete assessment right here, plus I recommend you watch her video of the hands-free superior driver-assistance system within the automobile. For individuals who need a sneak peek earlier than committing to the longer learn, right here’s the gist.

Corridor anticipated pleasure and delight. As a substitute, it was extra meh. Right here’s one of many whys. The Sort S weighs over 6,000 kilos. Even when the burden is evenly distributed entrance to rear, that’s a number of heft to get round a flip. She favored the hefty steering, however there wasn’t a lot suggestions occurring.

“The torque is all the time there on nook exit and physique roll is stored in verify, but I’m not feeling the delight,” she wrote, including that the 275/40 Continental Premium Contact 6 summer time tires on the Sort S supplied up loads of grip, however the low-profile sidewall mixed with the tougher run-flat rubber compound meant that the journey was only a contact harsh.

Corridor’s pursuit of an all-electric SUV that’s enjoyable by the twisties continues.