💰 Wayve Raises Over $1 Billion. “Wayve has announced a $1.05 billion Series C investment round led by SoftBank, with contributions from new investor NVIDIA NVDA -1.31%↓ and existing investor Microsoft MSFT 0.71%↑. to accelerate its mission to reimagine autonomous mobility through embodied intelligence.
😮 Hyundai Is Spending Close to $1 Billion To Keep Self-Driving Startup Motional Alive. “The Korean automaker invested $475 million directly into Motional as part of a broader deal that includes buying out joint venture partner Aptiv. As part of the deal, Hyundai will spend another $448 million to buy 11% of Aptiv’s common equity interest in Motional, according to information revealed Thursday in Aptiv’s first-quarter earnings report.”
…and from TechCrunch: “Motional has pushed its plan to launch a commercial driverless robotaxi service with its second-generation AV — the Hyundai Ioniq 5 — to 2026, two years later than planned.”
🙁 Luminar Lays off 20 Percent of Its Workforce. “The company, which just announced shipments of its next-generation laser sensors to Volvo, said that it will transition to an ‘asset light’ business model that will see more of its production outsourced to its partners. As part of the restructuring, at least 147 people will lose their jobs.” Also, Tesla bought more than $2 million worth of the company’s lidar this year…even though Elon Musk hates lidar.
🚘 Google’s Waymo Is Expanding Its Robotaxi Testing. “In the coming weeks, Waymo employees will begin testing rides without a human driver on city streets north of San Mateo, the company said.”
📌 Daimler to Merge Autonomous Driving with Battery Electric Propulsion. “The company unveiled a battery-electric eCascadia daycab equipped with an integrated autonomous driving stack from Torc Robotics.”
