Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch’s China roundup, a digest of recent events shaping the Chinese tech landscape and what they mean to people in the rest of the world. China’s anti-competition tech crackdown continues to redefine the dynamics among the country’s internet giants, leading to collaboration between Alibaba and Tencent in the payments race. In […]
California DMV Gives Cruise and Waymo OK To Charge For Rides
On Thursday, the California DMV issued autonomous deployment permits to Cruise and Waymo, “which is a necessary step if the robotaxis are to charge passengers for their rides,” reports The Verge. From the report: San Franciscans might have to be night …
7 takeaways from Rivian’s IPO filing
Rivian, the electric automaker backed by Amazon, Ford and a cornucopia of heavy-hitting institutional investors like T. Rowe Price Associates and Coatue, finally made its once-confidential IPO filing public. The company, which started in 2009 as Mainstream Motors before adopting the Rivian name two years later, has exploded in terms of people, backers and partners […]
We don’t just need an AV revolution — we need a design evolution
Building an autonomous vehicle without any changes in design is like building a cell phone with a rotary dial.
GM’s US factories will switch to renewable energy five years ahead of schedule
Earlier this year, GM announced plans to go green by 2035 with the vehicles it produces and by 2030 for its production facilities. Now it says it’ll achieve the factory goal five years early.
Battery chemistry company Sila’s founder Gene Berdichevsky on the science of scaling up
Before Gene Berdichevsky became the co-founder and CEO of battery chemistry company Sila Nano, he was the seventh employee at Tesla Motors. As principal engineer on the Roadster battery, Berdichevsky was one of the first people crazy enough to experiment with shoving a lithium-ion battery pack into a combustion engine vehicle. The result? The Roadster […]
Foxconn will build EVs for Lordstown Motors and Fisker at Ohio plant
Foxconn will build electric vehicles for Lordstown Motors as well as its other partner Fisker Inc. at a former GM factory in Ohio, under an agreement announced Thursday. Lordstown Motors, the beleaguered electric vehicle company that became publicly traded via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, said Thursday it reached a nonbinding agreement […]
NASA awards $253M to two companies developing electric propulsion tech for aircraft
NASA has chosen two U.S. companies to develop electric propulsion technologies for aircraft, with the aim of introducing this tech to U.S. aviation fleets by 2035. The two companies, GE Aviation and MagniX, will conduct their work over the next five years. That includes ground and flight test demonstrations, as well as collaborations with other […]
First drive of the Lucid Air reveals power and panache
While cruising along Interstate 8 in the Lucid Air, it didn’t take long for the conversation to turn to spider graphs. Spider graphs offer a quick glimpse of how various factors like power, performance, weight and aerodynamics interact with one another. For the engineer sitting in the passenger seat, spider graphs are top of mind. […]
Cruise, Waymo get OK to launch robotaxi service in San Francisco
The California Department of Motor Vehicles gave General Motors-backed Cruise and Alphabet-owned Waymo the green light to start charging for autonomous services offered to the public. On Thursday, Cruise received a “driverless deployment permit,” which means it can receive compensation for services provided without a safety operator in the front seat. Waymo’s “drivered deployment permit” […]