Friday, May 16, 2025

Image Credits: Google

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation.

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. A few days after Anderson announced his resignation from his position and the board at Aurora, he spoke to me about his next gig as chief product officer at GM. In short, he will oversee the entire product line of GM's gas-powered and electric vehicles — a position that will cover the entire life cycle of GM's portfolio and include hardware, software, services, and user experience.

Anderson couldn't say too much; plus, he hasn't started the job yet. Anderson did say he wouldn't have taken the new job if Aurora had yet to launch its commercial self-driving truck service in Texas.

Let's jump into the rest of the news.

A little bird

In an absolutely wild turn of events, Luminar's founder Austin Russell appears to have been pushed out as CEO and board chair. You can read my coverage here, which provides a bit of an overview of how this unfolded, but I know there is so much more to this story. TL;DR: If you were to only read Luminar's Q1 earnings report, you would assume Russell was still at the helm. A separate press release, released as the company's earnings went out, announced a leadership change and that Russell had resigned following an ethics inquiry from the board's audit committee.

Here's what I'm hearing from a few little birds. The word "blindsided" came up more than once, and the chaos isn't over. Luminar board member Jun Hong Heng, who is founder and chief investment officer at Crescent Cove Advisors and a mentor of Russell's, resigned a day later. Heng was also on the audit committee.

Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, Sean O'Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com or Rebecca Bellan at rebecca.bellan@techcrunch.com. Or check out these instructions to learn how to contact us via encrypted messaging apps or SecureDrop.

Deals!

Aurora has had an odd couple of weeks filled with highs — driverless commercial service woohoo! — and twists — whoops, there goes a co-founder. To cap things off, Uber announced plans to offer $1 billion in exchangeable senior notes due in 2028 in private placement. As you might expect, stocks dropped after investors got spooked about potential dilution and what this might mean for the value of Aurora's stock.

Other deals that got my attention …

AutoUnify, the latest startup that has launched out of the Up.Labs-Porsche partnership, raised $5 million in seed money. The Santa Monica, California-based startup, which built an API to allow dealerships and service shops to communicate in real time with the manufacturers and software vendors that power their operations, has been operating quietly for about nine months.

Chinese battery manufacturer CATL is far from a startup. But it's worth noting this bananas IPO plan. The company wants to raise at least HK$31.01 billion — that's just shy of $4 billion — in its Hong Kong listing. This is the largest listing globally in 2025.

Here's a potential deal that has raised some eyebrows. Federal railroad regulators are in talks with Elon Musk's tunneling firm, The Boring Company, over a multibillion-dollar Amtrak project.

Flock Freight, the shared truckload freight brokerage based in California, raised $60 million in a Series E funding round led by O'Neil Strategic Capital. Susquehanna Private Equity Investments, SignalFire, GLP Capital Partners, and Bracket Capital also participated.

Notable reads and other tidbits

AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES

Tesla's plan to launch a robotaxi service in Austin next month has caught the attention of federal safety investigators. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Office of Defects Investigation sent the company 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.

Recalls are starting to pop up more in the AV sector. Last week it was Zoox. Now Waymo has 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.

WeRide seems to be trying to ramp in Guangzhou. The Chinese company said it has introduced eight autonomous robotaxi pilot operation routes in the central part of the city. The company has also started trialing fully driverless robotaxis in Abu Dhabi.

ELECTRIC VEHICLES, CHARGING, & BATTERIES

General Motors has been working on a new battery chemistry called lithium manganese-rich, which it says should slash costs while delivering driving range. Notably, these LMR batteries dramatically reduce the amount of nickel and cobalt compared with GM's most advanced cells, two critical minerals that aren't readily available from domestic sources in the United States.

A footnote in Lucid's recent Q1 regulatory filing gives a bit more insight into its sales numbers. The EV maker's record quarter got a lift from rental sales and company leases.

Slate Auto has racked up more than 100,000 reservations for its customizable low-cost electric pickup truck.

Everyone, let's give a slow clap to Toyota for redesigning — and more importantly, renaming — its sole all-electric vehicle for the U.S. market. The EV, once called the bZ4X, will now simply be bZ. The original bZ4X was not well received. I'm looking forward to getting behind the wheel to see what improvements Toyota has made. Meanwhile, Toyota has brought back the C-HR nameplate, but this time as an EV. Hopefully this time it's more successful. It arrives in the U.S. in 2026.

GIG ECONOMY

Three years ago, reporter Rebecca Bellan noted that Uber was going through an Amazonification. Her pitch was that the company, like Amazon, had created a closed business loop to feed customers back into other Uber channels. The second part of that evolution has started, she reported this week. Uber appears to be moving beyond its focus on transportation and working to become a convenient super app, an aggregator of services, a daily-use lifestyle platform with its best offerings tucked behind a paywall.

FUTURE OF FLIGHT

U.S. lawmakers introduced the Supersonic Aviation Modernization Act in a bid to revise the FAA's 52-year ban on supersonic flight over U.S. soil. The timing could be crucial for startup Boom Supersonic, which has made progress in developing next-generation supersonic aircraft

Vertical Aerospace announced a plan to develop a hybrid-electric variant of its VX4, suggesting the company is pursuing opportunities in defense and logistics.

IN-CAR TECH

Apple's next generation of its popular CarPlay infotainment software is finally launching. Reminder: It was first announced three years ago. The new version, called CarPlay Ultra, will make its debut on new Aston Martin vehicles in the U.S. and Canada.

Google is bringing Gemini, its generative AI, to all cars that support Android Auto in the next few months. Patrick Brady, VP of Android for Cars, said Gemini will surface in the Android Auto experience in two main ways.