Lidar company Luminar reached a deal with Yorkville Advisors Global and an unnamed investor that could bring another $200 million into its coffers through the sale of convertible preferred stock over an 18-month period. The agreement, which was announced in a regulatory filing Wednesday, follows an abrupt change in leadership and layoffs. Earlier this month, […]

Luminar, the lidar company founded by recently replaced CEO Austin Russell, is going through another restructuring, according to a recent regulatory filing. This new round of layoffs, which the company did not provide figures for, follows extensive cuts to the workforce in 2024. Luminar cut about 30% of its workforce in 2024, a reduction that […]

The company is also aiming to unlock access to the San Francisco International Airport, although those plans are on a much longer timeline.

Atlanta is the second city to get the so-called "Waymo on Uber" service. The companies launched the service, which matches riders with a

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! OK, who placed their bet on General Motors being the landing spot for Aurora co-founder and chief product officer Sterling Anderson? Not me. But here we are. […]

Austin Russell, who became a billionaire after his lidar startup Luminar went public, appears to be out as CEO, according to the company’s board. Luminar’s board announced Wednesday — the same day of its first-quarter earnings report — it had replaced Russell and appointed Paul Ricci to the role. Ricci is the former chairman and […]

Waymo issued a software recall on 1,200 self-driving vehicles after some of its robotaxis were involved in minor collisions with gates, chains, and other gate-like roadway objects. The software update, which was first reported by Reuters, was conducted late last year, according to documents filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The Alphabet-owned […]

As serial entrepreneur Joel Milne founded, scaled, and then successfully sold mobile auto repair service startup RepairSmith to AutoNation, he was plagued by a persistent problem.  The automotive retail industry has a communication problem. And it’s an expensive one. Thousands of dealerships and mechanic shops — each one with an array of software systems — […]

Federal safety investigators have sent Tesla a detailed list of questions on its upcoming robotaxi service as part of an investigation into how the company’s “Full Self-Driving (Supervised)” software operates in low-visibility conditions. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Office of Defects Investigation wants the additional information about Full Self-Driving (Supervised) — or “FSD” — […]

General Motors has turned to Sterling Anderson, a veteran of the autonomous vehicle industry, to oversee its entire product line of gas-powered and electric vehicles, in a newly created job that will touch nearly every department at the U.S. automaker. The new VP of global product and chief product officer position will cover the entire […]

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Remember last week when Aurora met a major milestone — just squeaking by under its own deadline — and launched a driverless self-driving truck service? Welp, this […]

Sterling Anderson, a veteran of the nascent autonomous vehicle sector and co-founder of Aurora, is resigning just a week after the company launched its commercial self-driving truck service in Texas. Anderson held the chief product officer position at Aurora. The resignation was posted in a regulatory filing along with the company’s first-quarter earnings report. His […]

Hims & Hers, the telehealth and wellness company, has hired a veteran of the autonomous vehicle industry as its next chief technology officer. The move, according to Hims & Hers co-founder and CEO Andrew Dudum, was intentional. Hims & Hers on Thursday said its next CTO would be Mo Elshenawy, the former president and CTO […]

The venture arm of Bosch has a new $270 million fund that will continue its tradition of investing in deep-tech startups. This time, however, Bosch Ventures plans to put more of its money into North American startups. Launched in 2007, Bosch Ventures is now on its sixth fund. And while the corporate VC is technically […]

Zoox, the autonomous vehicle company owned by Amazon, paused its driverless testing program for more than a week and issued a voluntary recall of its software following a crash in Las Vegas, according to the company and a filing with federal safety regulators. The April 8 crash, which involved an unoccupied Zoox vehicle and a […]

Waymo has played coy for years about exactly how many Jaguar I-Pace EVs are in its autonomous fleet — a figure that covers vehicles used in testing and commercial robotaxi operations. On Monday, the Alphabet company finally provided a peek at the commercial side of the fleet. Waymo said Monday, as part of a larger […]

Uber has committed $100 million to Chinese robotaxi firm WeRide as they expand to 15 more cities.

Epic Games has notched a win in an ongoing legal dispute with Apple, as a result of which Fortnite could return to the U.S. iOS App Store as early as next week. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said in a ruling on Wednesday that Apple was in “willful violation” of a 2021 injunction that prohibited the […]

Waymo and Toyota have agreed to explore a possible deal that could one day lead to a new vehicle designed for ride-hailing and even bring self-driving tech into consumer cars. The two companies have signed a preliminary agreement to look into developing and deploying an autonomous vehicle platform, according to a blog posted by Waymo. […]

Tesla board member and Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia acquired about 4,000 shares of the automaker’s stock, a purchase that has a value of about $1 million and change, according to a regulatory filing. That’s not a significant stock purchase, and certainly not for the billionaire board member, as Electrek noted in its reporting. It’s notable […]