Rivian electric pickup will debut with three editions, with a cheaper one to follow

Rivian is opening up pre-orders for three editions of its upcoming electric pickup truck and SUV that start as low as $67,500 and with a battery range of more than 300 miles. However, more options will follow, including a base version that will have a smaller range of at least 250 miles and a price below $67,000.

Information on the three editions and their accompanying equipment packages, paint options and pricing is just a few of the numerous details released Wednesday on Rivian’s website. Perhaps one of the more notable tidbits include the addition of cheaper base version of the pickup and SUV, the official inclusion of the camp kitchen accessory and confirmation that a battery pack capable of more than 400 miles will be offered at some point in the future.

Rivian, which has attracted investment from the likes of Ford, Amazon, funds managed by BlackRock, T. Rowe Price and Associates and Cox Automotive, is aiming to become the first to bring an EV pickup truck to market. But it’s facing competition from legacy automakers such as GM as well as Tesla, which says it will start production of its futuristic looking Cybertruck in late 2021. Ford is also planning to bring an all-electric F-150 pickup truck to market in 2022.

Image Credits: Rivian

Deliveries of the first and, so far, most expensive version of the pickup truck called the Launch edition will begin in June 2021. The Launch edition of the RT1 truck will start at $75,000 (that’s before federal tax incentives are applied) and be able to travel more than 300 miles on the standard battery. The Launch edition will also have a special paint color called “Launch Green” along with other special badging and 20-inch all-terrain or 22-inch sport wheel upgrades included.

Two other packages — the Adventure and Explore — will be offered for the RT1 truck and the R1S SUV. All of these versions will have more than 300 miles of range. The big differences come in the finishes. The Launch and Adventure editions, for instance, come standard with an off-road upgrade with reinforced underbody shield, dual front bumper tow hooks and air compressor as well as “compass yellow” interior accents, 100% recycled microfiber headliner and “Chilewich floor mats.”

The various pickup truck editions range between $75,000 and $67,500 in price. The R1S SUV prices range between $77,500 and $70,000. And all of these editions will arrive in the marketplace at different times between June 2021 and into January 2022.

Customers who place pre-orders now, which requires a $1,000 deposit, will have access to a configurator November 16. Everyone else will have access to the configurator, which allows customers to pick the paint color, equipment package and other details, on November 23.

The bigger 400-plus mile battery will come to the pickup truck first, starting in January 2022, according to Rivian. A longer range R1S SUV with both five- and seven-passenger seating will be announced following start of production, the company said on its website.

 

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/11/rivian-electric-pickup-will-debut-with-three-editions-with-a-cheaper-one-to-follow/

Transportation on the ballot, Softbank parks its money in REEF and Tesla Tequila arrives

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Welcome back to The Station, a newsletter dedicated to all the present and future ways people and packages move from Point A to Point B.

What.A.Week. Shall we dig in?

Email me anytime at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com to share thoughts, criticisms, offer up opinions or tips. You can also send a direct message to me at Twitter — @kirstenkorosec.

Transportation on the ballot

Image Credits: Getty Images

Election Day turned into Election Week as the presidential race tightened and the world waited to see if President Trump would remain in office or if Joe Biden would become the 46th leader of the country.

On Saturday morning, AP, Fox News and every other major news outlets called the race, naming Joe Biden president-elect. The ballot counts will still continue and eventually lead to each state’s Electoral College electors formally casting their votes for president and vice president on December 14, as dictated by our election process.

Assuming Biden is sworn in as the next president of the United States, transportation will likely not be his first area of focus. However, it will be interesting to see how his personal experience of losing his first wife and daughter in a car crash, views on climate change and love for Corvettes as well as Amtrak might shape federal transportation policy. The country has deep infrastructure needs, a rail service in crisis and an emerging tech sector focused on commercializing automated vehicle technology.

Election Day was, of course, about more than Trump and Biden. Ballots throughout the U.S. contained dozens of transportation-related measures, including public transit funding, a car owner’s right to repair and whether gig economy workers should be classified as employees or independent contractors. 

Prop 22, the California ballot measure, might have been the most visible campaign thanks to the tens of millions of dollars that Uber, Lyft and other gig worker-reliant companies contributed to help garner support and get it passed. Voters approved Prop 22, which means that gig workers will continue to be classified as independent workers. Companies that use gig workers will be required to provide an earnings guarantee of at least 120% of minimum wage, 30 cents per engaged miles for expenses, a healthcare stipend, occupational accident insurance for on-the-job injuries, protection against discrimination and sexual harassment and automobile accident and liability insurance.

Fresh off of its success on Election Day, Uber signaled that it will continue to push laws similar to the Prop 22. The ride-hailing company’s ambitions for laws that preserve its business model are global. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said Thursday during an earnings call with analysts that the company will “more loudly advocate for laws like Prop 22.” He later added that it will be a priority of the company “to work with governments across the U.S. and the world to make this a reality.”

There were at other transportation-related measures that were decided by voters in California, Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan Oregon and Washington. Of the 19 measures related to public transit, 15 passed, two failed and one in Gwinnett County, Georgia is still “too close to call.” The Center for Transportation Excellence created a handy spreadsheet tracking Election 2020 ballot measures related to public transit.

Image Credits: Jackie Niam / Getty Images

Finally, another ballot measure, which received a lot of attention and lobbying dollars, was Question 1 in Massachusetts. The ballot measure, which was approved by 75% of voters, amends and broadens a law that gives consumers in Massachusetts the right to repair the vehicles they own.

Automakers that sell vehicles with telematics systems in Massachusetts will now have to equip them with a standardized open data platform beginning with model year 2022. This standardized open data platform has to give vehicle owners and independent repair facilities direct access and the ability to retrieve mechanical data and run diagnostics through a mobile-based application.

Importantly, this measure covers the data that telematics systems collect and wirelessly transmit. And it not only gives access to the mechanical data, it allows owners and independent mechanics to send commands to the vehicle for repair, maintenance and diagnostic testing.

The upshot? While this ballot measure is restricted to Massachusetts, there is precedent that it will expand to the rest of the country. The initial Right to Repair law went into effect in Massachusetts in 2013. By 2014, the industry agreed in a memorandum of understanding to expand that bill and cover the rest of the country.

Deal of the week

Transportation isn’t just about the movement between places; it’s also about the less active moments like parking. Which brings us to one eye-popping deal this week.

REEF Technology, the Miami-based company that started its life as ParkJockey, raked in $700 million from a group of investors that included Softbank and Mubadala Corp.

REEF provides hardware, software and management services for parking lots. But it more recently added other services such as providing infrastructure for cloud kitchens, healthcare clinics, logistics and last-mile delivery and even brick-and-mortar retail and experiential consumer spaces.

The company said that the money will be used to scale from 4,800 locations to 10,000 new locations around the country and to transform the parking lots into “neighborhood hubs,” according to Ari Ojalvo, the company’s co-founder and chief executive. Private equity and financial investment giants Oaktree, UBS Asset Management and the European venture capital firm Target Global also participated in the round.

As TechCrunch’s Jonathan Shieber noted in his coverage of the REEF round, like WeWork, REEF leases most of the real estate it operates and upgrades it before leasing it to other occupants (or using the spaces itself). Unlike WeWork, the business actually has a fair shot at working out — especially given business trends that have accelerated in response to the health and safety measures implemented to stop the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Other deals that got my attention …

ANOTHER LIDAR SPAC! Aeva is the latest company to eschew the traditional IPO path and go public via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company. It’s also the third lidar company, following Velodyne and Luminar, to take this route to the public markets.

Aeva is a Mountain View, California-based lidar company started by two former Apple engineers and backed by Porsche SE. The company announced it was merging with special purpose acquisition company InterPrivate Acquisition Corp., with a post-deal market valuation of $2.1 billion. The deal with InterPrivate is expected to close by early 2021.

Logisly, a Jakarta-based startup that describes itself as a “B2B tech-enabled logistics platform,” announced today it has raised $6 million in Series A funding to help streamline logistics in Indonesia. The round was led by Monk’s Hill Ventures.

Marshmallow, a UK startup aiming to take on legacy insurance giants with a new approach to determining risk, raised $30 million in a Series A round. The company has a post-fundraising valuation of $310 million.

Pony.ai, the autonomous vehicle company that operates in California and China, is now valued at $5.3 billion following a fresh injection of $267 million in funding. The round was led by TIP, an innovation fund within the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board that focuses on late-stage venture and growth equity investments in companies that deliver disruptive technology. Existing partners Fidelity China Special Situations PLC, 5Y Capital (formerly Morningside Venture Capital), ClearVue Partners and Eight Roads also participated in the round.

Provizio, which developed a sensory platform it says can perceive, predict and prevent car accidents in real time and beyond the line-of-sight, closed a seed investment round of $6.2 million. Bobby Hambrick, the founder of Autonomous Stuff, the founders of Movidius, the European Innovation Council (EIC) and ACT Venture Capital participated in the round.

Scale AI, a startup that uses software and people to process and label image, lidar and map data for companies building machine learning algorithms such as Toyota and Zoox, is on the brink of becoming a company valued $3 billion, The Information reported. The company founded and led by 230year-old Alexandr Wang reportedly received an offer of investment from Tiger Global Management valuing Scale at $3.2 billion pre-money, or triple its prior valuation.

Notable reads and other tidbits

All the other stuff you should know about …

Amazon has started operations at its first European Amazon Air hub, based out of the Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany. The new facility spans 20,000 square meters and will host two Amazon-branded Boeing 737-800 aircraft, bringing the company’s total operational air fleet to more than 70 aircraft.

Bentley Motors has begun its long farewell to the 12-cylinder combustion engines that have been the cornerstone of the 100-year-old company. The ultra luxury automaker under VW Group said it will only produce plug-in hybrid and all-electric cars starting in 2026 with an aim to drop all combustion engines in the next decade. Its entire lineup will be all-electric by 2030. The British manufacturer said two plug-in hybrid models will come out next year and its first all-electric vehicle will come to market in 2025.

CarGurus’ 2020 Pickup Truck Sentiment Study revealed that COVID-19 pandemic might have helped spur sales, thanks to young buyers. More than 26% of pickup truckers owners surveyed for the study said they had not planned to buy this category of vehicle. Other results, include 34% said they will  probably/definitely own an electric pickup truck in the next 10 years and 23% in the next five years.

Gen Z/millennial truck owners are over two times more likely to expect to own an electric truck in the next five years when compared to older truck owners (30% vs. 12%). The same age cohort of younger consumers are also two times more likely to consider a truck from category-newcomers like Tesla (32% vs. 14%), Rivian (11% vs. 4%) or Hummer (13% vs 6%) when compared to older truck owners, the study found.

GM is starting to hire people for more than 1,100 new jobs for its nearly 3 million-square-foot Ultium Cells LLC battery cell manufacturing facility in Lordstown, Ohio. Ultium Cells LLC is a joint venture with LG Chem that will mass-produce Ultium battery cells for electric vehicles. The plant is still under construction, but GM said it will begin actively hiring for “key positions.”

Tesla officially launched Teslaquila, a company-branded liquor that originally co-starred in CEO Elon Musk’s controversial April Fool’s Day joke about the automaker filing for bankruptcy. The Tesla Tequila costs $250 and is already sold out.

Uber reported earnings this week. As Alex Wilhelm and I wrote, the company’s two core segments were a tale of two cities: Uber’s ride-hailing (Mobility) business shrank, but made money, while Uber’s food delivery (Delivery) business grew, but continued to lose money.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/09/transportation-on-the-ballot-softbank-parks-its-money-in-reef-and-tesla-tequila-arrives/

Amazon pegs COVID-19 costs at an estimated $4 billion next quarter

Amazon expects to incur $4 billion in COVID-related costs next quarter, an estimate that provides a bellwether for other businesses, large and small, trying to stay operational and control expenses amid the pandemic.

The upshot: Amazon is planning for COVID to remain an unwelcome companion through the end of the year with costs higher than the previous quarter.

The company said Thursday in its third-quarter earnings call that it logged $7.5 billion in COVID-related costs since the disease took root earlier this year. Amazon previously said its COVID costs were about $600 million in the first quarter and more than $4 billion in the second. The company’s COVID costs in the third quarter were about $2.5 billion, CFO Brian Olsavsky told an analyst during an earnings call. While Amazon was able to lower its costs in the third quarter due to efficiencies that number is on rise for next quarter.

Olsavsky said the majority of the increase in costs is due to the expansion of its operations. Amazon has hired 100,000 new workers in October.

Amazon crushes Q3 expectations even without Prime Day bump

COVID-19 along with other uncertainties related to the economy, holiday sales and even weather patterns weighed on its guidance for operating income in the fourth quarter. Amazon provided a wide-ranging guidance of between $1 billion and $4.5 billion in operating income in the fourth quarter compared with $3.9 billion in the same period last year.  This guidance assumes about $4 billion of costs related to COVID-19.

But what is most telling is that even after providing a lengthy list of possible uncertainties in the fourth quarter, Olsavsky noted that COVID still trumps them all.

“So there’s a whole host of issues that generally come to bear in Q4,” Olsavsky said. “I think the fact that COVID is dwarfing all of those is causing us a lot of uncertainty on our top line range.”

Olsavsky said costs were related to productivity losses caused by changing how it operates as well as expenses related to personal protective equipment and other upfront costs.

“The largest portion of these costs relate to continuing productivity headwinds in our facilities, including process revisions to allow for social distancing and incremental costs to ramp up new facilities, and the large influx of new employees hired to support strong customer demand also includes investments in PPE for employees and enhanced cleaning of our facilities,” Olsavsky said during Thursday’s earnings call.

Amazon said Thursday it also continues to ramp up its in-house COVID-19 testing program with capacity reaching 50,000 tests a day across 650 sites by November.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/29/amazon-pegs-covid-19-costs-at-an-estimated-4-billion-next-quarter/

Amazon crushes Q3 expectations, but AWS growth slowed to 29%

Amazon has continued to reap the rewards of a society increasingly dependent on ecommerce — a trend further fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic. The company crushed analyst expectations Thursday, reporting net income of $6.3 billion in the third quarter, or $12.37 per diluted share, compared with $2.1 billion in net income, or $4.23 per diluted share in the same quarter last year. 

The company brought in a total of $96.15 billion in revenue, a 37.4% increase from the $69.98 billion it generated in the same period last year. 

Analysts polled by Yahoo expected earnings per share of $7.41 on average, up from $4.23 last year. Analysts expected revenue of $92.7 billion, up from $69.98 billion in the same year-ago period. 

While the third-quarter numbers beat expectations, the picture wasn’t all unicorns and rainbows. The company’s cloud-computing service AWS saw growth slow in the third quarter. AWS generated $11.6 billion in sales, a 29% YoY sales growth. That sounds dandy, but it’s actually smaller than the 35% YoY sales growth the segment experienced in the third quarter of 2019.

The financials released Thursday also showed growth from the second period of this year, which was considered at the time a “killer quarter” by just about every measure. Revenue grew 8% and net income popped 21% from the second quarter, figures that suggest that consumers have yet to reach their limit for commerce delivered to their doorsteps.  

Meanwhile, Amazon reported that its operating cash flow increased 56% to $55.3 billion for the trailing 12 months compared to $35.3 billion for the trailing period ended September 30, 2019. Free cash flow (operating cash flow less capital expenditures) also rose to $29.5 billion in the third quarter compared with $23.5 billion in the trailing period ended September 30, 2019. 

Looking ahead, Amazon is bullish on sales, but notes costs related to COVID-19 might affect operating income. The company said it expects sales to grow between 28% and 38% in the fourth quarter compared to the same period in 2019, which would bump that figure to between $112 billion and $121 billion.

Amazon said it expects operating income to be between $1 billion and $4.5 billion, compared with $3.9 billion in fourth quarter 2019. This guidance assumes approximately $4 billion of costs related to COVID-19.

 

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/29/amazon-crushes-q3-expectations-but-aws-growth-slowed-to-29/

Amazon’s first five climate fund investments include Redwood Materials, Rivian

Redwood Materials, the recycling startup founded by Tesla’s longtime CTO and co-founder JB Straubel, has landed Amazon as a new investor and customer.

Amazon’s investment in Redwood Materials is one of a handful announced Thursday that stems from the e-commerce giant’s $2 billion Climate Pledge Fund. Amazon announced in June that it would commit to invest $2 billion in sustainable technologies and services that will help it reach its commitment to have net-zero carbon operations by 2040.

Amazon said Thursday that the first recipients of its $2 billion fund also include CarbonCure Technologies, which developed technology that consumes carbon dioxide in concrete, climate technology company Pachama, electric automaker Rivian and Turntide Technologies. Amazon didn’t disclose the amount of the investments.

At least one of these investments has already been announced, although without the specific detail that the funds were coming from the climate fund. For instance, Amazon, an existing investor in Rivian, was a named a participant in the electric automaker’s $2.5 billion round in July. Rivian said 2019 it was developing an electric delivery van for Amazon using its skateboard platform. Amazon ordered 100,000 of these vans, with deliveries starting in 2021.

While Amazon’s interest in Rivian has been public for more than a year, the other investments have been unknown until now.

However, there were hints earlier this month that Amazon might have an interest in — and at the very least an awareness of — Redwood Materials. The startup, which launched in 2017, recently raised $40 million from investors, including Capricorn Investment Group and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the environmental-focused fund launched by Bill Gates that includes Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos as a board member. It’s possible that Amazon participated in that $40 million raise.

What’s perhaps more important than the investment amount is the relationship that has been established. Redwood Materials will also help Amazon recycle lithium-ion batteries from its electric vehicles as well as  e-waste from other parts of Amazon’s businesses and reuse their components.

Redwood Materials, a recycling startup based in Carson City, Nevada, is aiming to create a circular supply chain.

“We’ve made maybe more progress than some people may think and we’re actually running recycling operations and have revenue from those,” Straubel told TechCrunch. “In terms of customers, we have customers  on both sides of our company — on the incoming side there is material we recycle for companies and then on the outgoing side there are chemicals and materials that we sell back into the supply chain.”

Redwood already has customers on both sides of the business, Straubel said, although Panasonic and now Amazon are the only two that have been publicly named. Redwood is recycling the scrap from Panasonic’s battery cell manufacturing operation at the so-called Gigafactory it operates with Tesla in Sparks, Nevada. The company also has customers — that have yet to be named — on the consumer electronics side, Straubel said.

“We’re recycling and processing things as diverse as cell phone batteries, laptop computers, power tools, power banks, scooters and electric bicycles,” he said. “So it’s a kind of an amazing diversity of small- to mid-range applications that today really struggle to find a good solution. The recycling rates of those materials in particular are really atrocious in the market.”

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/17/amazons-first-five-climate-fund-investments-include-redwood-materials-rivian/

Chief CEO Carolyn Childers, Reboot.io CEO Jerry Colona, Ureeka co-founder Melissa Bradley are coming to Disrupt 2020

Becoming a successful leader isn’t a one-size-fits-all formula. Each startup — depending on the industry and internal culture — has its own needs.

The hard part is figuring out what leadership style best suits the personality of the CEO or founder as well as the needs and culture of their startup and employees who work there.

This year at TechCrunch’s virtual Disrupt 2020 on September 14-18, we’ll talk to the people who with the expertise and insight to help startup founders and other C-suite level executives — as well as those who someday hope to be in that spot — find the right leadership style for their business. We’re excited to announced that joining us on the Extra Crunch stage to discuss leadership styles is Carolyn Childers, co-founder and CEO of women leadership network Chief, Melissa Bradley co-founder of SMB networking platform Ureeka and Jerry Colonna, co-founder and CEO of executive coaching firm Reboot.io.

The three speakers will dig into what makes a successful leader and how to find the right management style as well as tackle other challenges that founders, CEOs and other executives face while building a company.

Bradley’s company Ureeka gives small business access to the expertise needed to grow their business. She is also founder and managing partner of 1863 Ventures, a business development program, and serves as advisor to the New Voices Foundation and New Voices Fund, as well as the Halcyon Fund. Bradley is the former Co-Chair, National Advisory Council for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and was recently named one of The Most Entrepreneurial Women Investors in 2018.

Chief, which Childers and partner Lindsay Kaplan launched in January 2019, is a private network to drive more women into positions of power and keep them there. The organization is designed for senior women leaders. Prior to founding Chief, Childers was senior vice president of operations at Handy, led the launch of the site Soap.com (Quidsi) and acted as its GM through its acquisition by Amazon. Childers’ work landed her on Inc.’s 2019 Female Founders 100 List.

Colonna’s company Reboot.io specializes in executive coaching and leadership development. Colonna, who has experience as an executive, venture capitalist, journalist and board member, is also the author of ‘REBOOT: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up.’

You may have heard that we’re taking Disrupt virtual this year, a move that lets us make the event accessible to more people than ever before while keeping everyone safe. Disrupt 2020 is scheduled to run from September 14 through September 19. Buy the Disrupt Digital Pro Pass or a Digital Startup Alley Exhibitor Package today and get access to all the interviews on our main Disrupt stage, workshops over on the Extra Crunch Stage where you can get actionable tips as well as CrunchMatch, our free, AI-powered networking platform. As soon as you register for Disrupt, you will have access to CrunchMatch and can start connecting with people now. Use the tool to schedule one-on-one video calls with potential customers and investors or to recruit and interview prospective employees.

We’ll see you there!

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/06/chief-ceo-carolyn-childers-reboot-io-ceo-jerry-colona-ureeka-co-founder-melissa-bradley-are-coming-to-disrupt-2020/

How one moonshot VC approaches investing in the COVID-19 era

Take one glance at Playground Global’s portfolio and a theme emerges: The firm’s investments are forward-looking, longer-term plays, a strategy that runs counter to the fast-return ethos that permeates certain Silicon Valley sectors.

The Palo Alto-based VC firm is banking on the future with investments in capital-intensive and technically complex pursuits, including robotics, autonomous driving, metallic 3D printing and infrastructure. It’s an investment strategy that isn’t for the faint of heart.

So, how does a firm that embraces futurism handle the present-day disruption of COVID-19? It looks ahead, of course.

When co-founder and CTO Peter Barrett joined TechCrunch this week for an Extra Crunch Live panel, the pandemic dominated the conversation. The executive noted that a new and common thread has emerged throughout the many discussions among Playground executives and the startups in which it has invested.

Priorities are shifting toward finding ways to be of service.

Everything feels different these days. Recent months have caused many in Silicon Valley to reconsider their investment priorities, roll up their figurative sleeves and begin the process of helping the world survive and, eventually, recover from the seemingly endless COVID-19 pandemic. Like many others, Playground finds itself at a crossroads — determining how it can be of service, while examining the ways in which a crisis like this can be addressed.

“One thing that underscores this pandemic is a realization that we need to be doing other things if we want to avoid being stuck inside for six months to a year,” Barrett said. “The biggest trend is a recognition that we need to make the investments that give us agency over our biology, and to build the tooling and infrastructure, so the parade of maladies which is behind COVID won’t have the same consequences that COVID-19 has.”

The pandemic has also driven people to reflect on what they want to do with their lives, Barrett said, suggesting that this phenomenon could influence which startups emerge from this period as well as what venture capitalists choose to invest in.

“If you’re an entrepreneur, I think a dating app looks less appealing than contributing in some way,” Barrett said, adding that entrepreneurs are looking at areas that “put us in a position where we really don’t have to be stuck inside because of a certain kilobase virus.”

Playground has a number of startups that are in position to offer some support, though, as is the nature of the firm’s tendency toward long runways. Most, however, appear better positioned to consider how we can prepare ourselves for the inevitability of some future pandemic, rather than the one we’re currently battling. Click through to read the highlights and watch a video with our entire conversation.

Nearer term plays

Playground’s portfolio is a mix of companies that are building things on a longer timescale that have the capital and patience to weather this pandemic, Barrett said.

However, in the near term, there are categories of companies that have an opportunity to be of service and grow their business.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/31/how-one-moonshot-vc-approaches-investing-in-the-covid-19-era/

Rivian to begin deliveries of electric pickup truck in June 2021

Rivian has started to run a pilot production line at its factory in Normal, Illinois, as the electric vehicle startup prepares to bring its pickup truck and SUV to market in summer 2021.

In an email sent to prospective customers, Rivian said deliveries of its R1T electric pickup truck will begin in June 2021. Deliveries of the R1S electric SUV will start in August 2021.

Rivian said in May that deliveries of the R1T and R1S would be pushed to 2021. It wasn’t clear — until today’s email — exactly when deliveries would begin.

Running a pilot production line is a critical step necessary to root out potential problems ahead of a full production launch. The two vehicles were supposed to come to market at the end of 2020. That timeline was extended to 2021 after the COVID-19 pandemic prompted Rivian to suspend construction work on the factory, a former Mitsubishi plant that the company acquired in 2017. The factory was where Mitsubishi in a joint venture with Chrysler Corporation called Diamond-Star Motors produced the Mitsubishi Eclipse, Plymouth Laser and Dodge Avenger, among others.

The factory will produce its R1T and R1S electric vehicles for consumers, as well as 100,000 delivery vans for Amazon. Rivian has said it is still on track to begin deliveries of electric vans built for Amazon in early 2021. About 10,000 of these electric vans will be on the road as early as 2022, and all 100,000 vehicles will be on the road by 2030, Amazon previously said.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/24/rivian-to-begin-deliveries-of-electric-pickup-truck-in-june-2021/

Tesla takes aim at Rivian in lawsuit alleging trade secret theft, poaching talent

Tesla filed a lawsuit against electric vehicle automaker Rivian and four former employers, on allegations of poaching talent and stealing trade secrets.

Bloomberg was the first to report the lawsuit filed in California Superior Court in Santa Clara.

Tesla alleges in the lawsuit that Rivian recruits Tesla employees and encourages them to take proprietary information as they leave. Tesla claims in the lawsuit that it has discovered an “alarming pattern” among employees who have recently left to join Rivian.

“As Tesla now knows, Rivian instructed one recently departing Tesla employee about the types of Tesla confidential information that Rivian needs. Both Rivan and the employee knew full well that taking such information would violate the employee’s non-disclosure obligation to Tesla. Nonetheless, the employee expropriated for Rivian the exact information Rivian sought — highly sensitive, trade secret information that would give Rivian a huge competitive advantage,” the complaint reads.

Tesla named four former employees in the lawsuit, but added its investigation continues. The company claims it has since identified two more former workers who have gone on to work at Rivian and alleges they “likely misappropriated Tesla trade secret, confidential or proprietary information.”

The trade secrets identified in the complaint include recruiting practices and other documents related to finding and hiring talent such as salary rates and candidate lists. Other allegedly stolen documents related to manufacturing project management information.

Tesla claims that Rivian has hired 178 former employees. About 70 of those employees joined the startup directly from Tesla.

In response, Rivian issued a statement to TechCrunch that calls the allegations baseless:

We admire Tesla for its leadership in resetting expectations of what an electric car can be. Rivian is made up of high-performing, mission-driven teams, and our business model and technology are based on many years of engineering, design and strategy development. This requires the contribution and know-how of thousands of employees from across the technology and automotive spaces. Upon joining Rivian, we require all employees to confirm that they have not, and will not, introduce former employers’ intellectual property into Rivian systems. This suit’s allegations are baseless and run counter to Rivian’s culture, ethos and corporate policies.

Rivian has become the latest company to be sued by Tesla over allegations of stealing trade secrets. Some of these cases, such as its 2017 lawsuit against AV startup Aurora, have been withdrawn altogether or ended in agreements. Others, like its lawsuit filed against Xpeng Motors, have persisted. A lawsuit filed against Zoox was settled in April 2020.

Rivian has been ramping up its operations over the past 18 months, including hiring hundreds of people. While the company has existed for about 10 years, it operated quietly in the background until late 2018, when its founder and CEO, RJ Scaringe, unveiled two vehicles at the LA Auto Show.

Since then, Rivian has become the next EV darling. The company, which recently raised $2.5 billion in new funding, is aiming to become the first to bring an EV pickup truck to market.

Rivian has some high-profile backers, including Amazon, Ford and funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. Amazon is also a customer and has ordered 100,000 electric vans from Rivian.

The automaker is preparing its factory in Normal, Illinois to assemble its R1T electric pickup truck and the R1S SUV, as well as begin to fulfill its order with Amazon to deliver electric vans. All three of these products are expected to come to market — or directly to Amazon, for the van order — in 2021.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/23/tesla-takes-aim-at-rivian-in-lawsuit-alleging-trade-secret-theft-poaching-talent/

The Station: Amazoox, TuSimple seeks $250M and the next e-scooter battleground

The Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click The Station — to receive it every Saturday in your inbox.

Hi friends and first-time readers. Welcome back to The Station, a newsletter dedicated to all the present and future ways people and packages move from Point A to Point B. I’m your host Kirsten Korosec, senior transportation reporter at TechCrunch.

Remember please reach out and email me at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com to share thoughts, criticisms, offer up opinions or tips. You can also send a direct message to me at Twitter — @kirstenkorosec.

Typically this space is where I philosophize about a specific event and emerging transportation trend. This week, let’s all take a pause to remember Jessi Combs, who was officially and posthumously declared to hold the fastest land speed record by a woman.

The Guinness Book of World Records certified this week the 522.783 mph land speed record that Combs achieved August 27, 2019 in the Alvord Desert in Oregon. Combs died after her vehicle crashed during that run. It’s the first time a new record has been set in this category in more than 40 years. Kitty O’Neil held the record with her 512.7 mph run set back in 1976.

Here’s to you Jessi, the fastest woman on earth.

Did anyone have trouble keeping up with all the deals, virtual automotive reveals and policy decisions this week? Yeah. Me too. Let’s get to it. Vamos.

Micromobbin’

A couple of cities are emerging as new battlegrounds for the shared e-scooter market. New York City is a biggie.

This week, the New York City Council approved a bill that will require the New York Department of Transportation to create a pilot program for the operation of shared electric scooters in the city. The DOT now has until October 15, 2020 to issue a request for proposals to participate in a shared e-scooter pilot program.

The pilot program must launch by March 1, 2021. The NY council will continue to work with DOT on determining where to set up the pilot (this is the important part). If the pilot program limits the service area it could prove a failure, several e-scooter companies and advocates told me. We know it won’t include Manhattan. That leaves four other boroughs.

Just about every e-scooter company — and a number of other less known players — are planning to apply for the permit.  The next nine months promises a lot of lobbying activity. These firms are already busy, according to our sources. Stay tuned!

The NY city council also approved two laws about the use of privately owned electric bikes and scooters.

Meanwhile, Apple has finally added a new biking feature to Maps. The newest version of iOS is bringing a host of new features to Maps, including a dedicated cycling option that will optimize paths for bicyclists and even let users know if the route includes challenging hills. Apple Maps has included public transit and walking in previous iterations. But the biking option has been the most requested, according to Apple senior director Stacey Lysik.

Deal of the week

Amazoooooxxxxx. Zamazon? It’s a thing now. In case you missed it, Amazon acquired Zoox.

There have been rumors, speculation and reports about the fate of self-driving vehicle startup for months now. The WSJ had the first report in May that Amazon was in talks to acquire the self-driving company.

The official announcement, which was issued Friday morning, didn’t reveal much about the terms of the deal except that Zoox CEO Aicha Evans and co-founder and CTO Jesse Levinson will continue to lead Zoox as a standalone business.

As you might expect, there was nary a financial figure in sight. The Financial Times put the deal at $1.2 billion and The Information pegged it at “more than $1 billion.” Either way, the acquisition price was well below the $3.2 billion valuation Zoox had achieved two years before.

It wasn’t a secret that Zoox was struggling to raise a large enough round. As I’ve stated numerous times before, Zoox has the kind of ambitions that require a mountain of capital. And by mountain, I mean far north of $1 billion. The company isn’t just building the full self-driving stack — essentially the suite of hardware and software that replaces a human driver. It took on the design and development of a new bidirectional electric vehicle with no steering wheel  and it plans to operate a ride-hailing service as well.

The upshot: Zoox didn’t have a lot of options. Many automakers, Tier 1 suppliers and tech companies had already formed their various alliances and partnerships, leaving Zoox on its own. Amazon certainly has the resources to help it hit its lofty goals. That is, IF Amazon doesn’t change those goals for Zoox. For now, Amazon is publicly sticking to Zoox’ mission to build and operate a fleet of robotaxis.

And we can expect more Amazon flexing in the transportation industry. The e-commerce announced this week a $2 billion Climate Pledge Fund to invest in sustainable technologies and services that will help the company reach its commitment to be net-zero carbon in its operations by 2040. Some of that coin will go towards automation and transportation.

Other deals that got our attention ….

Self-driving truck startup TuSimple has hired investment bank Morgan Stanley to help it raise $250 million, multiple sources told me. Morgan Stanley recently sent potential investors an informational packet, which I also viewed, that provides a snapshot of the company and an overview of its business model, as well as a pitch on why the company is poised to succeed. TuSimple has raised about $298 million with a valuation of more than $1 billion. Its backers include Sina, operator of China’s biggest microblogging site Weibo, Hong Kong-based investment firm Composite Capital, Nvidia, UPS, CDH Investments, Lavender Capital and Tier 1 supplier Mando Corporation.

ADAM CogTech, an Israeli automotive software startup, raised $2 million from Mobilion Ventures, the company said. Mobilion is an early-stage fund that invests in smart mobility, focusing on Israeli and global after-market innovation.

Amazon’s $575 million investment into UK food delivery startup Deliveroo has been cleared by the country’s competition regulator. The investment, which was announced more than a year ago, gave Amazon a 16% stake in Deliveroo. Now that CMA has provisionally cleared the deal, it is open for public comments until July 10. A final decision is expected August 6.

Cazoo, the British online used car marketplace, raised £25 million at a valuation in excess of $1 billion. Draper Esprit joined existing investors in the round, a group that includes DMG Ventures and General Catalyst. Cazoo has raised more than £200 million to date.

DriveU.auto, an Israeli startup that spun out of video transmission technology company LiveU, came out of stealth with $4 million in new funding. The startup has developed a connectivity platform for teleoperations. The funding round was led by RAD group co-founder Zohar Zisapel and included participation from Two Lanterns Venture Partners, Yigal Jacoby, Kaedan Capital and other private investors. Francisco Partners is an existing shareholder.

Lucid Motors gave up majority ownership to Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund in exchange for the $1.3 billion investment it closed last year, according to information disclosed in a new lawsuit, the Verge reported. Wired Middle East previously reported the PIF had taken a 67% stake. However, this is the first time an acknowledgment from the company has been made public.

Shift Technologies, an online used car marketplace, is in talks to merge with blank-check company Insurance Acquisition Corp., Bloomberg reported. Shift is aiming to be valued at more than $500 million in the deal.

Third Wave Automation, a startup developing autonomous forklift technology, emerged from stealth with $15 million in equity financing, VentureBeat reported.

Volkswagen is in talks to buy Europcar Mobility Group, the French car rental company that has a market capitalization of 390 million euros ($441 million) and net debt as of more than 1 billion euros, Reuters reported.

Truckin’

Trucks have popped up a lot this week, so I figured, heck let’s dig in a bit. The big trendy discussion is about how robotaxis are OUT and autonomous Class 8 trucks are IN. This move towards trucking has actually been happening for awhile now.

The niche subcategory in the autonomous vehicle industry was rather empty in 2015 when TuSimple was founded. Then self-driving truck startup Otto came along. Uber’s 2016 acquisition of Otto certainly brought some attention to the sector. But a number of other startups had also thrown their respective hats into the trucking ring, including Embark and the now defunct Starsky Robotics. Today, this sub-industry includes Ike, Kodiak Robotics and Waymo.

This week, Amazon-backed Aurora received some press for its “shift” to trucking based off of an interview with co-founder Sterling Anderson during The Information’s Autonomous Vehicle Summit.

Let’s be clear, the company has been publicly talking about trucks since at least October 2019. The notable bit is that Anderson shared more about its work with trucks and was clearly bullish on the potential in the marketplace. Together, his comments suggest that the company is prioritizing the development of autonomous trucks over cars.

But the company designed a full self-driving stack meant to have a variety of applications, not just passenger cars. In a tweet after the interview, Anderson summarized its whole approach.

We’re compelled by a product path that goes from middle mile to last mile to mobility services.

If you can swing this technically, it allows for an elegant transition from the largest market (today) with the best unit economics and lowest level of service requirements to smaller, but rapidly growing markets with more challenging unit economics and level of service needs”

In other truckin’ news …

The California Air Resources Board adopted a new rule to phase out the most polluting vehicles on the road today. The rule will require truck manufacturers to transition from diesel trucks and vans to electric zero-emission trucks beginning in 2024. By 2045, every new truck sold in California will be zero-emission.

Russian-Finnish company Zyfra is using 5G technology to replace Wi-Fi/mesh networks used for autonomous mining dump trucks, CNET’s Roadshow reports.

Notable reads and other tidbits

AVs, ride-hailing, electric vehicles and more!

Autonomous vehicles …

Didi Chuxing said Saturday (today) that its on-demand robotaxi service will start picking up riders in Shanghai, China. Passengers may start requesting on-demand rides for free on autonomous vehicles within a designated open-traffic area that covers Shanghai’s Automobile Exhibition Center, the local business districts, subway stations and hotels in downtown Shanghai, the company said in a press release.

Lyft is using data collected from drivers on its ride-hailing app to accelerate the development of self-driving cars. Lyft’s Level 5 self-driving car program is using the data to build 3D maps, understand human driving patterns and improve simulation tests. The program is taking data from select vehicles in its Express Drive program, which provides rental cars and SUVs to drivers on its platform as an alternative to options like long-term leasing

Waymo and Volvo Car Group announced Thursday an “exclusive” partnership to integrate Waymo’s self-driving software into a new electric vehicle designed for ride-hailing. Not a ton of detail about the deal or what “exclusive” means. We know that Volvo and Uber still have a partnership. The deal with Waymo involves integrating its self-driving stack into an “all-new mobility-focused electric vehicle platform for ride hailing services.”  The partnership also includes other subsidiaries under Volvo Car Group, including electric performance brand Polestar and Lynk & Co. International, a point that Volvo Car Group CTO Henrik Green specifically noted in his prepared statement.

Mercedes-Benz and Nvidia announced a partnership to bring “software-defined” vehicles to market. The automaker’s next-generation vehicles will have a software-centric computing architecture based on Nvidia’s Drive AGX Orin computer system-on-a-chip. The underlying architecture will be standard in Mercedes vehicles, starting sometime toward the end of 2024.

It’s electric …

Apple has added a routing feature to Maps that’s designed for electric vehicle owners. The EV routing feature, which will be available in the newest version of iOS, will show charging stations compatible to a user’s electric vehicle along their route. TechCrunch’s Romain Dillet got a bit more information on this feature. He tells me that users will be able to enter their car model in the app, which will provide stops. The user can tap on the stops to see if the charging station is free or not. On sidenote, Apple is also releasing a feature that will prompt you to raise your phone and scan buildings across the street to refine your location. This feature is based on Look Around, a Google Street View-inspired feature that lets you look around as if you were walking down the street.

Arrival revealed a zero-emission bus, the next step in the company to become a major electric transportation company, the Verge reported.

Ars Technica digs into one Ohio city’s plan to get more people to buy electric cars. Hint: it worked.

Lordstown Motors unveiled an electric pickup truck prototype with four in-wheel hub motors and a few other features all aimed squarely at attracting contractors and other buyers in the commercial market. The Ohio startup didn’t get too deep into the details about the electric pickup truck known as Endurance. But we know a few more bits such as a $52,500 base price and some partnerships.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter that September 15 is the “tentative date” for the “Tesla Shareholder Meeting & Battery Day,” which will include the usual shareholder meeting as well as a tour of the automaker’s cell production system for the batteries that provide the power for its vehicles.

Speaking of Tesla … the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened a preliminary investigation into allegations of failing touchscreens on Tesla’s older Model S vehicles.

Ride-hailing …

Lyft has agreed to settle a lawsuit from the U.S. Department of Justice that alleges the ridesharing company discriminated against disabled people — specifically those who use foldable wheelchairs or walkers.

Miscellaneous …

Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs plans to spin out some of its smart city ideas into separate companies focused on mass timber construction, affordable electrification and planning tools optimized with machine learning and computation design, CEO Daniel Doctoroff said at Collision from Home conference, VentureBeat reported.

Ford’s Michigan Central is collaborating with Brooklyn-based Newlab to launch two “Innovation Studios” focused on solving complex transportation industry problems related to connectivity, autonomy and electrification. A corporate studio sponsored by Ford will kick off this summer to address macro mobility issues. A second civic studio will follow focusing on more immediate mobility issues in the neighborhoods around Michigan Central Station. In 2018, Ford acquired 1.2 million square feet in Corktown, Detroit’s oldest neighborhood, including the historic Michigan Central Station, with plans to establish a new mobility innovation district called Michigan Central. The first work spaces are expected to open within Michigan Central in 2022.

GM turned to 3D printing for a C8 Corvette prototype. In the end, 75% of the vehicle was 3D printed, Car and Driver reported.

See ya’ll next week!

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/28/the-station-amazoox-tusimple-seeks-250m-and-the-next-e-scooter-battleground/

Here’s what is driving GM’s reported plans to develop a commercial electric van

GM’s electric offensive to bring at least 20 new EVs to market by 2023 reportedly includes a commercial van.

Reuters reported Thursday that the company is developing an electric van for the commercial market code named BV1. The vehicle is expected to start production in late 2021 and will use the Ultium battery system that was revealed in March, according to the report.

When, and if, GM delivers on that goal in 2021 it will join an increasingly crowded pool. Amazon ordered 100,000 electric delivery vans from Rivian, the first of which are expected to be on the road in 2021. Ford has announced an electric Transit van that’s expected to launch in 2021. Startups such as Arrival, Chanje, Enirde, and XoS have received orders for electric vans from package delivery companies such as Ryder and UPS.

Tesla is one outlier that hasn’t revealed plans to produce commercial electric vans. GM’s move has been cast as a strategy to get ahead of Tesla in the commercial marketplace.

But there are likely other reasons driving GM’s decision, including high margins that can be achieved selling commercial trucks and vans as well as governments enacting increasingly strict emissions laws, particularly in urban centers.

Electric vans are logical fit for delivery companies, which tend to have predictable routes, a specific geographic area and operate a high utilization all of which fits with the EV infrastructure and charging ecosystems that enables their full economic use, a research note released Thursday from Morgan Stanley argues.

Morgan Stanley notes it hasn’t been “smooth sailing” for all EV vans. For instance, DHL’s StreetScooter program was recently shut down.

Prior to Reuters’ report, it appeared GM’s EV strategy was pinned to passenger vehicles. In March, GM revealed an electric architecture that will be the foundation of its future EV plans and support a wide range of products across its brands, including compact cars, work trucks, large premium SUVs, performance vehicles and a new Bolt EUV crossover expected to come to market next summer.

GM said the modular architecture, called “Ultium,” will be capable of 19 different battery and drive unit configurations, 400-volt and 800-volt packs with storage ranging from 50 kWh to 200 kWh, and front-, rear- and all-wheel drive configurations.

GM’s focus on making this EV architecture modular underlines the automaker’s desire to electrify a wide variety of its business lines, from the Cruise Origin autonomous taxi and compact Chevrolet  Bolt EUV to the GMC HUMMER electric truck and SUV and the newly-announced Cadillac Lyriq SUV. GM also showed a variety of electric vehicles that had not yet been announced, to show how this modularity will be exploited further out in their product plan, including a massive Cadillac flagship sedan called Celestiq.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/04/whats-driving-gms-reported-plans-to-develop-a-commercial-electric-van/

OTTO Motors raises $29M to fill factories with autonomous delivery robots

When Clearpath Robotics CEO and co-founder Matthew Rendall looks at the “miles” of roads inside industrial factories, he sees them filled with autonomous vehicles.

And in the past five years, the company has inched toward that goal through its industrial division OTTO Motors. The division, which launched in 2015, has landed a number of customer contracts to bring its autonomous mobile robot platform into factories, including GE, Toyota, Nestlé and Berry Global.

OTTO Motors is preparing to expand with a fresh injection of $29 million in funding. The Series C funding round announced this week was led by led by Kensington Private Equity Fund, with participation from Bank of Montreal Capital Partners, Export Development Canada (EDC) and previous investors iNovia Capital and RRE Ventures. To date, the company has raised $83 million in funding.

OTTO Motors’ autonomous mobile robot platform, or AMRs, are used to handle materials within warehouses and factories. These robots, which were once viewed as a luxury, are now a necessity, according to Rendall, who believes the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for companies to enhance work safety will only accelerate the trend toward robots.

Robots, and more broadly automation, are often viewed as job killers in manufacturing. But Rendall argues that AMRs help fill roles that are currently sitting vacant and allow humans to take on the higher-skilled and higher-paid jobs.

“We tend to see more situations where the operation is not at peak output, not operating peak performance because they just can’t find the people,” Rendall said in a recent interview, noting that one of its customer shut down an entire wing of its facility because they just can’t get people.

Factories are often located near smaller towns or sprawling communities with a limited labor pool, a shortfall that can be compounded when Amazon opens up a facility nearby.

“There’s a kind of vacuum that pulls qualified talent out of the established manufacturing or warehouse base,” he said.

A 2018 study by Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute forecast that a skills gap is projected to leave 2.4 million positions unfilled between 2018 and 2028 in the United States. The skills gap has popped up in other countries where OTTO Motors is now focused, including Japan, where the aging population is larger than the younger generation. Even China, which has historically been viewed as a place with an expanding labor pool, now has a national robotics strategy, Rendall said.

The company developed its AMRs to help manufacturers outsource the lower-value tasks to robots. “One of the least valuable things you can pay your people to do is walk from Point A to Point B,” Rendall said. “If you’re strapped for talent you want to have that team focused on what is at Point A or at Point B, like assembling an automobile. Walking to a warehouse with a part is something that can be outsourced to a machine.”

OTTO Motors’ initial customer base grew out of the automotive and transportation industries. It now works with six of the 10 OEMs. But Rendall says it has also seen success in the medical device and healthcare sector, as well.

COVID-19 has spurred demand, Rendall said, as essential businesses in the food, beverage and medical device industries attempt to lessen risks associated with the disease.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/04/otto-motors-raises-29m-to-fill-factories-with-autonomous-delivery-robots/

Rivian’s Amazon electric delivery van still on track as factory reopens

Rivian, the electric vehicle company backed by Amazon, Cox Automotive and Ford, has resumed work at its factory in Normal, Ill. following a temporary shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Construction on the factory, which will eventually produce its R1T and R1S electric vehicles for consumers as well as 100,000 delivery vans for Amazon, has restarted with employees returning in phases. Despite the shutdown and gradual restart, the timeline for the Amazon delivery vans is still on track, according to a statement from Amazon released Thursday.

In September, Amazon announced it had ordered 100,000 electric delivery vehicles from Rivian as part of its commitment to The Climate Pledge to become net zero carbon by 2040. Vans will begin delivering to customers in 2021, as previously planned. About 10,000 electric vehicles will be on the road as early as 2022 and all 100,000 vehicles will be on the road by 2030, Amazon said in a statement Thursday.

Rivian has pushed the start of production on the R1T and R1S to 2021. The company had initially planned to start production and begin deliveries of the electric pickup truck and SUV in late 2020. That timeline has been adjusted. Rivian had always planned to deliver the R1T truck first, followed by the R1S.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the company to adjust its timeline due to supply constraints. However, Rivian is now working on bringing the production and delivery timeline of the R1T and R1S closer together.

For now, the company is focused on work inside and outside the factory. About 335 Rivian employees were on site before COVID hit. Today, about 116 are on site with plans to gradually bring back the remaining employees. Rivian did not furlough any employees and continues to pay all workers their wages.

About 109 contractors are also back at the factory working on the interior. Another 120 to 140 contractors are working outside to expand the factory from 2.6 million to 3 million square feet.

The company has implemented new safety practices under a four-phase plan, according to Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe. Temperature checks are carried out and workers are supplied with protective clothing and equipment.

The vehicle engineering and design teams have also developed digital methods to make sure that program timing remains on track, according to Scaringe.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/28/rivians-amazon-electric-delivery-van-still-on-track-as-factory-reopens/

American stocks rally sharply on COVID-19 optimism as earnings loom

Stocks rallied Monday, with all major indices snapping back into positive territories as investors seized on any positive developments in the fight to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus.

The stock market is, of course, not the economy. And this is likely a dead cat bounce — a temporary recovery after a big fall. The question is how many dead cat bounces will we see in the coming weeks?

And while the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic is continuing that didn’t stop investors from grasping at data from John Hopkins University that suggests the number of new COVID-19 cases is slowing. The institution’s coronavirus map, which has become a go-to source, showed 25,200 new cases rising on March 31, then rising to 33,300 new cases by April 3. Those numbers dropped to 28,200 new cases April 4, per its data; other trackers have posted slightly different results.

Today’s rally will be tested in the days and weeks to come as COVID-19 cases continue and eventually hit a peak before plateauing. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House coronavirus task force, has warned that cases, and deaths, will likely surge in the next week.

Here are the day’s results:

• Dow Jones Industrial Average: up 7.59%, or 1,597.21 points, to close at 22.649.74
• S&P 500: rose 6.95%, or 172.86 points, to close at 2,661.51
• Nasdaq composite: popped 7.33%, or 540.15 points, to close at 7,913.24

There were other indirect COVID-19 fundamentals such as new sales guidance or analyst notes that also moved certain stocks.

E-commerce stocks, including eBay and Amazon saw positive movement. Online retailer Wayfair was perhaps the biggest mover in this category. The company’s shares opened 36% higher after reporting its gross revenue growth rate more than doubled at the end of March. Wayfair shares closed up 41.7% to $71.50.

Music streaming company Spotify saw shares decline more than 4% after Raymond James downgraded the stock from “strong buy” to “market perform,” citing that COVID-19 was causing less engagement and fewer downloads as users spend more time indoors. Spotify shares did manage to bounce back during the day and ended up closing up nearly 0.33% to $122.52.

Shares of SaaS companies rallied on the day as well, with the Bessemer cloud index rising 6.79% on the day; shares of SaaS companies, modern software firms, have enjoyed strong revenue multiples in recent years. They have tracked the broader indices down, however, and remain in bear-market territory.

Looking ahead, we’re entering earnings season during a period of intense economic uncertainty; how the stock market performs in the future will at least partially depend on how companies performed in Q1 2020, and what they project for the future. Get ready.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/06/american-stocks-rally-sharply-on-covid-19-optimism-as-earnings-loom/