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About $75 billion has been invested in the development of self-driving technology by suppliers and manufacturers of self-driving vehicles.
As a result, shares of Embark Technology, TuSimple Holdings, and Aurora Innovation have fallen by at least 80% this year. It makes sense that Intel has reduced the target worth of its Mobileye autonomous vehicle division to around $16 billion. Early last year, General Motors-owned Cruise raised roughly $30 billion in cash.
The SoftBank Vision Fund was purchased by GM in March at a price that implied the firm was worth about $19 billion. That is what occurs when a recently developed technology comes into contact with the harsh reality of a fickle public market and rising interest rates. Many of these companies raised tens of billions of dollars long before their technology was proven or they were even close to becoming self-sustaining.
The hype of the past decade and recent crashes have cast doubt on whether self-driving cars will work. Anthony Levandowski, one of Google’s early self-driving pioneers, who joined Uber Technologies and was later convicted of stealing trade secrets, is now developing self-driving trucks for industrial sites. leading a startup.
Companies in the industry are now forced to consider drastic measures. Aurora chief executive Chris Urmson said he sent an internal memo in September saying he could cut costs, privatize the company, spin off assets and even try to sell the company to Apple or Microsoft.
In his Businessweek cover story this month, he argued that his case of simpler use would be the way to the foreseeable future. Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas brought tremendous value to Tesla’s mobility services seven years ago, and it’s still nowhere to be found.
Others experience high turnover rates. GM CEO Mary Barra fired cruiser girlfriend Dan Ammann late last year. TuSimple was replaced by founder and CEO Cheng Lu in March, and general counsel James Mullen resigned in September. Alphabet-owned Waymo lost chief product officer Dan Chu to his 23andMe last month.
The well-capitalized participants in the business are diversifying into new markets and activities even while managers and investors may both be quitting. In Phoenix and Austin, Texas, Cruise intends to imitate the robotaxi service in San Francisco. In addition to renting out automobiles in Los Angeles, Waymo also delivers beer between Dallas and Houston.
This week, the founder of Kodiak Robotics obtained $30 million in private funding while driving 8,000 miles in trucks from Texas to Florida. while the test driver was in control of the vehicle, the human outperformed the robot 94% of the time. commenced moving IKEA furniture.