Tag: EC Mobility Hardware

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Zūm founder strikes balance between accessibility and a massive logistics network

Zūm’s mission is simple – to introduce student transportation that is reliable, efficient, sustainable and transparent.

To achieve the feat of modernizing an incredibly outdated, stuck-in-the-mud system, Zūm relies on cloud-based analytics software to create an agile bus routing system with real-time visibility for schools and parents. The startup also uses a diverse fleet that includes buses, vans and cars that it distributes based on specific use cases. For example, kids who live on busier routes will be assigned to school buses, and those who are slightly more remote will be sent vans or cars to increase overall efficiency.

When we last talked to Ritu Narayan, Zūm’s founder, the startup had just won a $150 million contract to modernize student transportation at the San Francisco Unified School District and was working on a plan to transform its fleet of electric school buses into a virtual power plant to provide backup energy to the grid.

“Zūm is a very recession-proof business. No matter what, kids are going to go to school every day, whether there’s a recession or inflation.” Zūm founder Ritu Narayan

Since then, Zūm has signed a $68 million contract with Seattle Public Schools and a $400 million contract with the Los Angeles Unified School District to bring their outdated busing systems into 2022 and beyond. The company also closed a $130 million Series D led by Softbank Vision Fund 2, bringing its total funding to more than $200 million, and set a goal to have a 100% electrified fleet of buses, vans and cars by 2025.

We sat down with Narayan to catch up on the past year and talk about how to bring on top tech talent, how growth-stage startups can attract next-level investors, and how to pick a recession-proof business.

Editor’s note: The following interview, part of an ongoing series with founders who are building transportation companies, has been edited for length and clarity.

TechCrunch: Zūm has had some impressive new executive hires lately — it looks like you’ve poached from the likes of Amazon, Microsoft, Uber and Netflix. Do you have any tips for other startups looking to attract top tech talent?

Ritu Narayan: The No. 1 thing is the focus on the mission and the purpose. The business that we are disrupting is a pretty old business. It has been around for 80 to 100 years with not much change. So when looking for potential hires, we just map out very clearly what change Zūm is bringing. We believe everybody has faced some kind of school bus story, whether they got bullied on the bus or maybe didn’t have access to one and had to walk. It’s such a part of people’s lives, that when we actually explain our mission and founding story, people are very much able to relate.

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Battery investment moves onshore to kick-start US EV production

Automakers and suppliers are breaking ground on battery factories across the United States as they race to go all in on EVs by the end of the decade.

Car companies and suppliers such as LG Energy, SK Innovation, Panasonic and Samsung are investing more than $38 billion through 2026 to boost battery production in the U.S., according to AlixPartners. In July, Kansas and North Carolina each announced the largest economic development projects in their histories, and Ford finalized a deal to bring its battery production to Tennessee and Kentucky.

This is just the start of a boom in onshore battery manufacturing: The Inflation Reduction Act, which includes tax credits to encourage domestic production of electric vehicles and batteries, offers manufacturers $30 billion in credits to speed the production of batteries and minerals processing, as well as solar panels and wind turbines, and $10 billion to build plants for EVs and solar panels.

The multiyear projects already announced won’t begin producing batteries for EVs until middecade, but shortening the supply chain will ultimately help manufacturers control costs and reduce dependence on foreign sources for raw materials. Building a domestic battery industry also lets automakers co-locate near partners, a crucial factor as the industry begins experimenting with different battery chemistries.

“This way you’re in that feedback loop that allows you to innovate and reengineer so that you always have a constant advantage and are meeting the market versus dealing with several suppliers in the chain,” said Arun Kumar, managing director of AlixPartners’ automotive and industrial practice.

“Imagine that you’ve got all the engineering, design, marketing and sales figured out, but then you don’t have enough lithium-ion batteries to produce and sell those vehicles,” Kumar added. “If you fall two years behind, you’re as good as lost because then you’re going to struggle with trying to capture the market.”

Here’s a look at some of the major projects underway:

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The disappearance of Bolt Mobility shows how corrosive depreciation can be for IRL startups

With the apparent demise of Bolt Mobility, the divide between technology businesses and those that are merely tech-enabled is back at the forefront of our minds. Once a key point of discussion when the IPO market was alive, today we’re sifting through what is left of the micromobility sector, now freshly depopulated to a new local maximum.

Not every great product makes for a good business. Renting fashion? Great idea, lovely product, fun service. But as Rent the Runway has demonstrated during its life as a public company, making something that people want is not always enough to cement long-term value.

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Kodiak Robotics’ founder explains why autonomous freight could brush off inflation

If solving the problems of autonomous driving were a question of money, it’d have been solved long before now. That’s the primary argument of Don Burnette, co-founder and CEO of autonomous trucking startup Kodiak Robotics, which has expanded its business and hit milestones with a fraction of the funds that bigger players like Waymo have.

Over the past year, Kodiak has launched commercial pilots and partnerships with Ceva Logistics and US Xpress, two large trucking and logistics companies; begun using two new autonomous freight lanes outside of Texas and has raised a $125 million Series B, bringing its total funding to $165 million since 2018.

One of the few private autonomous vehicle companies on the market, Kodiak lives by the mantra of doing more with less. Last year, Burnette told us Kodiak could deploy a commercial-scale operation for $500 million. That’s about 10% of what Waymo has raised and less than 25% of TuSimple’s IPO.

Kodiak is still aiming for that goal and has now secured a reputation for keeping a tight balance sheet and an even tighter focus on chasing self-driving trucks, and only self-driving trucks. Someone else can solve the other autonomy issues.

Someone else can also solve the issues of building sensors and labeling data, according to Burnette, who relies on third parties for such components. In Kodiak’s eyes, building lidar in-house and spending time and resources on labeling data is nothing but an expensive distraction from creating a safe and viable go-to-market strategy.

“I’m not seeing as much negativity around the markets as I’m hearing publicly, and that gives me some optimism that this market is still exciting and healthy.” Don Burnette, co-founder and CEO, Kodiak Robotics

It’s been a year since the last time we interviewed Burnette for this series, so we caught up to talk about how scrapping HD maps has allowed Kodiak to expand into interstate trucking lanes faster than competitors; how removable sensor pods will help Kodiak scale; and why autonomous trucking may be immune to today’s bear market.

Editor’s note: The following interview, part of an ongoing series with founders who are building transportation companies, has been edited for length and clarity.

TechCrunch: Autonomous trucking feels like it’s becoming more competitive as the industry matures. How does Kodiak stand out?

Burnette: An important piece of the story we wanted to tell was the modularity of the system, because it was informed by conversations with partners. Last month, we demonstrated how easy it is to replace one of our sensor pods in the field by a non-AV trained technician. (Kodiak’s sensor pods include one lidar, two radar and three cameras, and they replace the truck’s stock sideview mirrors).

That last bit was really important to us, because the first question we get when we talk to pretty much anybody in the trucking industry is, “If I have an AV fleet, how do I maintain that fleet?”

We have focused on ensuring that the AV platform doesn’t get in the way of the existing routine maintenance infrastructure pipeline that exists for these partners. We think that’s a unique offering that other folks are not paying attention to, and I think you’re going to see a shift toward our designs and technologies in the next couple of years.

Can the sensor pods be placed in any type of freight truck to make them autonomous?

That’s right. We have designed it to be very agnostic to the truck provider — we have worked on all of the big four platforms to ensure that this design meshes with all of the different providers out there in a clean and seamless way.

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Micromobility is fun, but perhaps that’s all it’ll ever be

It is worth beginning with a note that I am terribly risk averse, and therefore … not a ton of fun. When Ford micromobility subsidiary Spin first launched a fleet of electric scooters in my hometown of Pittsburgh last summer, my immediate instinct was very old-man-yells-at-cloud.

Youths took over the streets and sidewalks, racing around downtown and the North Shore on the orange scooters. In the hillier parts of the city — in case you don’t know anything about Pittsburgh, that’s most of the city — they were a stationary menace, abandoned on sidewalks, under bridges and in the middle of alleys.

I wrote off the Spin scooters as an inevitable consequence of city living and vowed to avoid the cursed conveyances. Around the same time, two things happened: I started editing a lot of Rebecca Bellan’s contributions to TechCrunch, and I began dating a guy who swears scooters are fun.

Founders of micromobility startups made plenty of good arguments for why fleets of electric scooters and bikes make sense. First and foremost, they are not cars, which is great for improving air quality and ameliorating rush-hour traffic. They can aid in solving the “last-mile problem” — getting people from the last stop on the subway or bus line to their home or work. They’re in theory more affordable than owning a car or even hailing a taxi or an Uber, solving obvious equity issues for low-income individuals.

I wasn’t buying it — they struck me as dangerous, rickety and unsustainable on multiple levels. Venture capitalists disagreed, dumping millions into the likes of Bird and Lime.

If you’ve been reading TechCrunch, you know what happened next.

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Veo’s Candice Xie one year later, still slowly and steadily winning the profitability race

When you think about shared micromobility, Veo isn’t exactly the first company that comes to mind. It’s not as widespread as competitors like Voi, Tier and Lime, and it hasn’t raised nearly as much in venture capital. But as consolidation and, simply put, bad business shapes the industry, Veo has maintained a steady and profitable pace. That is, if CEO and co-founder Candice Xie is to be believed.

Veo, which is perhaps most noted for its comfortable sit-down scooters and its continued presence in New York City’s e-scooter pilot, has stuck by a business model that looks at micromobility more as a utility and less as a startup. Rather than raising tons of money to expand as quickly as possible in the hope of achieving favorable unit economics, Veo has slowly focused on being sustainable, one city at a time. In June 2021, Veo was in 22 markets. Today, it’s in 27, almost all of which are exclusive or limited vendor contracts.

“I’m truly a believer that this industry takes time to build, and whoever survives is the most important thing. Long term, who can weather all the crazy market turbulence?” Veo CEO Candice Xie

While VCs might shudder at such apparently slow growth — Lime’s global city count is around 225 — Xie says Veo is on track to maintain a sustainable business that continues to turn over profits.

We sat down with Xie one year after our initial interview to talk about what is going on with all these layoffs, why scooter ADAS isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and how a sustainable financial base can help startups weather market turmoil.

The following interview, part of an ongoing series with founders who are building transportation companies, has been edited for length and clarity.

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Why LFP batteries are poised to bring down entry-level EV prices

An older, cheaper and safer battery technology already dominating China’s electric vehicle industry is now poised to reshape battery manufacturing worldwide and boost EV sales in the United States — if the global lithium supply remains stable.

A slew of patents for lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) chemistries due to expire in 2022 could shift the face of battery production in the U.S. and Europe.

China has owned the market for nearly a decade due to an agreement with patent holders — a consortium of universities in the U.S. and Canada — that let Chinese manufacturers use them to supply local markets. Meanwhile, manufacturers outside China have focused on developing other lithium-ion chemistries to power their EVs because their higher energy density translates into longer range on the road.

LFP already comprises 17% of the global EV market and represents a potential path for the mass market, according to the AlixPartners 2022 Global Automotive Outlook released Wednesday.

That’s because universal access to patents, coupled with the escalating prices of raw battery materials, is driving many automakers to home in on the advantages of iron-based batteries. To start, they cost less, don’t use scarce raw materials like cobalt and nickel, and are less likely to catch fire.

There have been warnings that a looming lithium supply shortage could cut the global EV sales forecast in 2030 to 25 million EVs, down from a projected 40 million, according to a report Tuesday from the Advanced Propulsion Centre, a partnership between the U.K. government and automakers.

However, that hasn’t appeared to stop the momentum toward LFPs. Even if a lithium bottleneck slows production, the battery chemistry remains easier to produce than the NMC (nickel-manganese-cobalt) the industry currently favors, as those metals are in short supply, too.

The same organization forecast that a quarter of EVs built in Europe will use LFP. Industry analysts have also become bullish on the prospect of LFPs, projecting that the iron-based batteries will power entry-level and cheaper vehicles, while nickel-based cells will be used for higher-end and performance cars. 

LFP batteries could play a large role in the 250 battery-electric nameplates coming to the U.S. through 2030, according to Edgar Faler, senior industry analyst at the Center for Automotive Research. The chemistry is also well suited to the growing demand for light and medium commercial vehicles that can deliver goods in urban areas.

“For the foreseeable future, there’ll be a number of different chemistries competing to become the chemistry of choice,” Faler said.

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What’s the ‘secret sauce’ behind Croatian EV maker Rimac?

Rimac Group made headlines in June after it raised €500 million ($537 million) in a Series D round led by Goldman Sachs and SoftBank Vision Fund 2. The deal valued the Croatian startup at $2.2 billion, prompting the question: How has this company succeeded where so many other EV makers have struggled?

Rimac, which merged its hypercar division with French supercar maker Bugatti in November, has taken a two-pronged approach the industry has not seen before: It’s continuing to make hypercars as Bugatti Rimac while using the knowledge gleaned from that process to develop technology to supply other automakers through its Rimac Technology subsidiary. Its client list includes Porsche, a four-time investor that now holds a 20% stake in the company.

Founded in 2009 in the garage of Mate Rimac, then a 21-year-old student, the company has become a Croatian sensation, one of two unicorns in the country, alongside Infobip, an IT and telecommunications business.

“I view their secret sauce as the complementary nature of the two businesses — how the test bed for the hypercar creates value for the B2B supplier,” said Stephen Beck, founder and managing partner of management consultancy cg42. “The two businesses feed off of each other without really competing against one another.”

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Ghost kitchens ride into college campuses on the backs of delivery bots

The relatively controlled environments of university campuses have long served as ideal testing grounds for autonomous technology, and they’re proving particularly effective for sidewalk delivery robots.

In the latest move to introduce autonomous delivery to college campuses, early last week, food delivery platform Grubhub and sidewalk delivery robot startup Cartken shared plans to bring 50 food delivery robots to Ohio State University this fall. An expansion of their spring semester pilot of 15 bots, the plan is to have around 100 Cartken robots delivering around OSU by the end of the school year.

A closed, geofenced environment allows companies to test higher levels of autonomy as there are fewer edge cases and difficult scenarios, like busy intersections. And campuses typically have neatly paved sidewalks, which are perfect for the small wheels of delivery robots.

As more universities around the United States slowly become home to such robots, they’re finding that the bots are not just a neat new feature to appease hungry students or promote their willingness to welcome innovation. Universities are now relying on bots to both address labor shortages and explore new business opportunities, such as delivery-only kitchens, popularly referred to as “ghost kitchens.”

“If you think about it, almost every kitchen in today’s world is a ghost kitchen, because every restaurant is doing delivery now.” Zia Ahmed, senior director, dining services, OSU

“Universities are starting to see the opportunity to marry that concept of running multiple restaurants from a production facility and tying that to robotics. It allows them to pick a central point on campus that’s operationally or logistically beneficial, and then build a whole set of virtual restaurants that can only be delivered through robots,” Benjamin Anderson, Grubhub’s director of campus business development, told TechCrunch.

The lay of the land

Universities are no stranger to autonomous delivery robots, but startups are now steadily increasing their presence on campus sidewalks.

Grubhub is only expanding on its previous work with its new plans — the company previously worked with OSU and Arizona State University to deploy Russian internet company Yandex’s autonomous rovers. They were popular with students, the people involved said, but Grubhub, like many Western companies fearful of the taint of war, pulled out of that partnership when Russia invaded Ukraine.

This is, however, Cartken’s first foray into university delivery. Earlier this year, the startup partnered with Mitsubishi to bring delivery to certain malls in Japan and is also working with REEF Technology to deliver from ghost kitchens in downtown Miami.

Larger rival Starship Technologies, arguably the leader in the space, has been deploying robots on campuses for years. The startup, which last raised $42 million in December, operates in 30 colleges around the U.S. and will announce more partnerships in the coming months, the company said.

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Dual-chemistry battery tech could push BMW’s iX EV to 600-mile range

Battery startup Our Next Energy (ONE) and BMW today said the carmaker’s prototype of its flagship EV, iX, will run on ONE’s unique Gemini dual-chemistry battery pack by the end of the year.

BMW’s iX was introduced late last year with a maximum range of 324 miles, based on estimates from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. With the prototype, ONE is hoping to nearly double that to 600 miles.

That’s an enormous leap above the iX’s range today, which sits just above what many automakers say is the 300-mile sweet spot for EV adoption. Such an increase may seem unnecessarily decadent — after all, how many road-trippers travel 600 miles, or eight hours at highway speeds, without taking a break? But for ONE founder and CEO Mujeeb Ijaz, it’s all about meeting drivers’ range expectations even in the most extreme conditions.

While EVs have made great strides in the last decade in meeting customer expectations, Ijaz feels they’re not nearly where they need to be once you factor in things like cold weather, trailer towing, or driving at highway speeds. Towing with Ford’s new F-150 Lightning, for example, cuts range by about half, while many (though not all) EVs will travel about 10% to 20% less than their stated range when driven at a consistent 75 mph.

“I’m thoroughly convinced that to solve the market adoption, we’re going to need to double the amount of energy on board to deal with and overcome all the real-world conditions that are going to be thrown at EVs,” Ijaz said. “I’ve seen in 30 years how range has affected the ability for products to really get into the ethos of serving customers at all levels to where adoption can be robust.”

The market’s shift toward SUVs and pickup trucks has only further cemented his conviction that the ideal EV range as measured by EPA methodology is 600 to 700 miles.

“Battery-powered platforms that are in the truck market, like the one that I’m sitting in,” Ijaz said while parked in his new Rivian R1T, “could have at least a 40% delta between the advertised range and the range that you experience. And so we decided to resolve that problem by setting a new target.”

To hit that target, ONE has developed a new type of battery pack that employs two different chemistries. As I revealed in an exclusive look at ONE’s patent filings, the key to the dual-chemistry pack is a sophisticated set of electronics and software that allow the different cell types to focus on what they do best.