When Skydio, a young maker of drones in San Mateo, California, sent a customer proposal in 2023 to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, its chief of staff, Mike Gennaro, forwarded the email to VC Ben Horowitz. “Which deployment are you looking to do?” Horowitz wrote back. “Whatever you want, Ben,” Gennaro replied, according to […]

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Monarch Tractor has laid off around 10% of its workforce as part of a restructuring that will see it prioritize non-agricultural customers, license its autonomous technology, and boost sales of its AI-powered farm management software, TechCrunch has learned. Around 35 employees were cut this week by the Livermore, California-based autonomous electric tractor startup that has […]

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Lucid Motors has officially started taking orders for its electric Gravity SUV, a critically important vehicle that’s supposed to go into production by the end of this year. Interested buyers can now place $1,000 refundable deposits on the “Grand Touring” trim, which starts at $94,900, on the company’s website. Similar to the company’s current model, […]

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EV startup Canoo has lost its chief financial officer and its head lawyer, the latest in a string of executive departures as the company continues to struggle to find mass adoption of its electric work vans. CFO Greg Ethridge and general counsel Hector Ruiz both resigned from Canoo on October 31, the company announced Tuesday […]

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Waymo recently closed a $5.6 billion Series C funding round led by parent company Alphabet and joined by a who’s who of Silicon Valley venture firms. The investment boosts Waymo’s overall valuation to more than $45 billion, according to Bloomberg News. Alphabet had previously announced in July that it was pledging another $5 billion to […]

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Rivian’s chief software officer Wassym Bensaid opened up at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 last week about his thoughts on physical buttons (“an anomaly“) and how his company will help power VW offshoot Scout’s EVs. But there’s one other item on his to-do list that he’s “super excited” about: making Rivian’s vehicles work with third-party app developers. […]

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The trend of big touchscreens in cars has left many yearning for the not-so-distant days when most user interactions happened with physical buttons. But Rivian’s chief software officer Wassym Bensaid believes using buttons in a car is an “anomaly.” “It’s a bug. It’s not a feature,” Bensaid said Wednesday at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. “Ideally, you […]

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Zoox co-founder and CTO Jesse Levinson doesn’t believe Tesla will launch a robotaxi ride-hailing service in California (or anywhere else) next year despite what Elon Musk recently claimed. The “fundamental issue is they don’t have technology that works,” Levinson said Wednesday at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. “And by works, I want to differentiate between a driver […]

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Amazon-owned AV company Zoox will start rolling out dozens of its purpose-built autonomous vehicle in San Francisco and in Las Vegas in the coming weeks, co-founder and CTO Jesse Levinson announced on the TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 stage. Levinson said that Zoox will start offering rides — starting with employees — in the SoMa neighborhood of […]

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VW’s new offshoot EV company Scout Motors, which revealed its first two vehicles last week, will use the software and zonal architecture being developed by the joint venture between Rivian and the Volkswagen Group. Rivian Chief Software Officer Wassym Bensaid confirmed to TechCrunch at Disrupt 2024 that Scout will leverage the joint venture tech when […]

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It looks fake, or at least like a good illusion: There’s Gecko Materials founder Capella Kerst dangling a full wine bottle from her pinky finger, the only thing keeping it from smashing to pieces being the super-strong dry-adhesive her startup has brought to market. But it’s no trick. It’s the result of years of academic […]

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General Motors CEO Mary Barra still believes an autonomous vehicle with no steering wheel and pedals is “definitely” in her company’s future, despite recently suspending work on the purpose-built Origin. Barra told the crowd at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 on Tuesday that she still has an eye on a robotaxi with no steering wheel but that […]

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