Sean O'Kane, Author at TechCrunch

VW taps former Rivian exec to run US business

Sean O'Kane — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 21:09:31 +0000

Volkswagen of America has a new CEO: Rivian’s recently departed chief commercial officer Kjell Gruner. The appointment comes just one week after VW parent company Volkswagen Group formalized a $5.8 billion joint venture with Rivian, which will be focused on EV architecture and software. While Gruner’s new post isn’t really related to that new JV, […]

Las Vegas sheriff tells a16z partners what’s next on his wish list: AI for bodycams

Sean O'Kane, Margaux MacColl — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 18:35:28 +0000

Vegas police received funding for tech like drones and license plate readers from Ben Horowitz. Now it wants AI to go through police footage.

Drone manufacturer Skydio raises $170 million extension round

Margaux MacColl, Sean O'Kane — Fri, 15 Nov 2024 18:05:31 +0000

American drone manufacturer Skydio has raised an extension round of $170 million, adding onto the $230 million Series E it closed early last year.

General Motors slashes another 1,000 jobs to cut costs

Sean O'Kane — Fri, 15 Nov 2024 16:20:46 +0000

General Motors is laying off nearly 1,000 workers in the U.S. as part of a cost-cutting bid, just three months after cutting 1,000 software jobs. The company told TechCrunch that cuts won’t affect hourly workers at any of its factories, but declined to specify which teams were affected. A significant majority of the layoffs were […]

The Rivian-Volkswagen joint venture deal is now up to $5.8B

Sean O'Kane, Kirsten Korosec — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 21:11:54 +0000

Rivian and Volkswagen Group have finalized a multibillion-dollar joint venture to develop software, paving the way to let the German auto giant leverage the EV startup’s more technical chops in the coming years. Volkswagen will invest up to $5.8 billion by 2027, about 16% more than when the deal was first announced in June. Volkswagen […]

Ben Horowitz’s cozy relationship with the Las Vegas Police Department aided a16z portfolio company Skydio

Margaux MacColl, Sean O'Kane — Fri, 08 Nov 2024 22:07:03 +0000

When Skydio, a young maker of drones in San Mateo, California, sent a customer proposal in 2023 to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, its chief of staff, Mike Gennaro, forwarded the email to VC Ben Horowitz. “Which deployment are you looking to do?” Horowitz wrote back. “Whatever you want, Ben,” Gennaro replied, according to […]

Monarch Tractor lays off 10% in restructuring towards software and licensing AV tech

Sean O'Kane — Fri, 08 Nov 2024 20:39:30 +0000

Monarch Tractor has laid off around 10% of its workforce as part of a restructuring that will see it prioritize non-agricultural customers, license its autonomous technology, and boost sales of its AI-powered farm management software, TechCrunch has learned. Around 35 employees were cut this week by the Livermore, California-based autonomous electric tractor startup that has […]

Lucid Motors starts taking orders for its existential Gravity SUV

Sean O'Kane — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 15:05:41 +0000

Lucid Motors has officially started taking orders for its electric Gravity SUV, a critically important vehicle that’s supposed to go into production by the end of this year. Interested buyers can now place $1,000 refundable deposits on the “Grand Touring” trim, which starts at $94,900, on the company’s website. Similar to the company’s current model, […]

Canoo’s CFO and top lawyer are the latest executives to leave

Sean O'Kane — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 22:34:27 +0000

EV startup Canoo has lost its chief financial officer and its head lawyer, the latest in a string of executive departures as the company continues to struggle to find mass adoption of its electric work vans. CFO Greg Ethridge and general counsel Hector Ruiz both resigned from Canoo on October 31, the company announced Tuesday […]

Waymo’s latest funding round boosts it to a $45B valuation

Sean O'Kane — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 18:43:00 +0000

Waymo recently closed a $5.6 billion Series C funding round led by parent company Alphabet and joined by a who’s who of Silicon Valley venture firms. The investment boosts Waymo’s overall valuation to more than $45 billion, according to Bloomberg News. Alphabet had previously announced in July that it was pledging another $5 billion to […]

Rivian’s software boss is ‘super excited’ about third-party apps

Sean O'Kane — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 18:26:31 +0000

Rivian’s chief software officer Wassym Bensaid opened up at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 last week about his thoughts on physical buttons (“an anomaly“) and how his company will help power VW offshoot Scout’s EVs. But there’s one other item on his to-do list that he’s “super excited” about: making Rivian’s vehicles work with third-party app developers. […]

Rivian’s chief software officer says in-car buttons are ‘an anomaly’

Sean O'Kane — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 22:16:56 +0000

The trend of big touchscreens in cars has left many yearning for the not-so-distant days when most user interactions happened with physical buttons. But Rivian’s chief software officer Wassym Bensaid believes using buttons in a car is an “anomaly.” “It’s a bug. It’s not a feature,” Bensaid said Wednesday at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. “Ideally, you […]

Zoox co-founder on Tesla self-driving: ‘They don’t have technology that works’

Sean O'Kane — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 20:09:12 +0000

Zoox co-founder and CTO Jesse Levinson doesn’t believe Tesla will launch a robotaxi ride-hailing service in California (or anywhere else) next year despite what Elon Musk recently claimed. The “fundamental issue is they don’t have technology that works,” Levinson said Wednesday at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. “And by works, I want to differentiate between a driver […]

Zoox custom robotaxis are finally coming to San Francisco and Las Vegas

Kirsten Korosec, Sean O'Kane — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 19:13:34 +0000

Amazon-owned AV company Zoox will start rolling out dozens of its purpose-built autonomous vehicle in San Francisco and in Las Vegas in the coming weeks, co-founder and CTO Jesse Levinson announced on the TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 stage. Levinson said that Zoox will start offering rides — starting with employees — in the SoMa neighborhood of […]

Scout Motors EVs will use Rivian-VW software and architecture

Sean O'Kane — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 18:34:55 +0000

VW’s new offshoot EV company Scout Motors, which revealed its first two vehicles last week, will use the software and zonal architecture being developed by the joint venture between Rivian and the Volkswagen Group. Rivian Chief Software Officer Wassym Bensaid confirmed to TechCrunch at Disrupt 2024 that Scout will leverage the joint venture tech when […]

Gecko Materials wants to sell you the next Velcro

Sean O'Kane — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 21:45:57 +0000

It looks fake, or at least like a good illusion: There’s Gecko Materials founder Dr. Capella Kerst dangling a full wine bottle from her pinky finger, the only thing keeping it from smashing to pieces being the super-strong dry-adhesive her startup has brought to market. But it’s no trick. It’s the result of years of […]

Mary Barra still thinks GM will make an AV with no steering wheel

Sean O'Kane — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 19:30:44 +0000

General Motors CEO Mary Barra still believes an autonomous vehicle with no steering wheel and pedals is “definitely” in her company’s future, despite recently suspending work on the purpose-built Origin. Barra told the crowd at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 on Tuesday that she still has an eye on a robotaxi with no steering wheel but that […]

Infinite Machine raises $9M a16z-led round to convince Americans to buy scooters

Sean O'Kane — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 13:00:00 +0000

Infinite Machine turned many heads when it revealed its metallic, cyberpunk-style electric scooter in 2023. Now one of Silicon Valley’s biggest venture capital firms is backing the startup’s vision of filling the world’s cities with Infinite Machine’s futuristic vehicles in a big way. The New York-based startup has closed a $9 million seed round led […]

Rental car startup Kyte slashes staff and shrinks to two markets in bid for survival

Sean O'Kane — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 19:00:47 +0000

Rental car startup Kyte, which bills itself as the “best alternative to Hertz,” is pulling out of almost all of its major markets in the United States and has cut its workforce roughly in half in a bid to survive after exploring a sale earlier this year. The company is shrinking its operations to focus […]

Tesla’s $25,000 EV flip-flop, explained

Sean O'Kane — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 19:00:53 +0000

The idea of a $25,000 Tesla has persisted for years — in part, perhaps, because CEO Elon Musk said he was “very confident” the company could do it at an event in 2020. But on Wednesday night, during Tesla’s third-quarter earnings call, Musk said the idea of a $25,000 car with a steering wheel and […]