- California Lets Self-Driving Taxis Loose In San Francisco All Day and Night Gizmodo
- California regulators approve expansion of robotaxi services in San Francisco KTVU FOX 2 San Francisco
- Robotaxis are now allowed in San Francisco, whether locals want it or not The Washington Post
- Robotaxis are good for disabled people, advocates say. But are wheelchair users being thrown under the (autonomous) bus? San Francisco Chronicle
- Commentary: Waymo and Cruise are Driven by Money, Not Safety – Streetsblog San Francisco Streetsblog San Francisco
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: TAXIS
California clears way for driverless taxis in San Francisco – Financial Times
- California clears way for driverless taxis in San Francisco Financial Times
- California regulators approve expansion of robotaxi services in San Francisco KTVU FOX 2 San Francisco
- California regulators approve expansion of driverless robotaxi car service KTLA 5
- Commentary: Waymo and Cruise are Driven by Money, Not Safety – Streetsblog San Francisco Streetsblog San Francisco
- Teamsters Condemn CPUC for Expansion of Robotaxis in San Francisco, Undemocratic Process Catering to Big Tech International Brotherhood of Teamsters
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Exclusive: Geely plans to turn maker of London black cabs into EV powerhouse
COVENTRY, England, Jan 23 (Reuters) – China’s Geely (0175.HK) is planning a big investment to turn the maker of London’s iconic black taxis into a high-volume, all-electric brand with a range of commercial and passenger vehicles, executives at the unit told Reuters.
London Electric Vehicle Company (LEVC) also aims to expand its suite of services, which include cars arranging their own maintenance and recognising their owner’s interests to help them book activities.
“We need a developed product portfolio. We need to make big investments in terms of the technology and infrastructure,” LEVC Chief Executive Alex Nan said at the taxi maker’s headquarters in Coventry, central England. “Geely will make consistent investments into LEVC because this is a very unique project.”
LEVC builds a hybrid taxi model that starts at around 66,000 pounds ($81,500), which has a battery providing 64 miles (103 km) of range and a petrol range-extender giving it a total range of over 300 miles. The company’s business was hit hard by the pandemic and it laid off 140 staff in October.
Nan said LEVC and Geely would seek to attract other investors to its zero-emission portfolio and would look to partner with other carmakers to develop new technology.
Executives said the size of Geely’s investment would be disclosed later. So far the Chinese group, which took full control of LEVC in 2013, has invested 500 million pounds in it.
“Geely fully supports the new transition strategy laid out by LEVC’s board and executive team,” Geely said in a statement.
In 2021, Geely launched a 2 billion pound investment in another unit, niche British luxury sports carmaker Lotus, to massively expand production of its sports cars and build high-end SUVs and sedans in Britain and China. Geely is following a similar path in its plans to grow LEVC, executives said.
Britain’s EV ambitions were dealt a blow last week when startup Britishvolt, which had planned to build a major battery factory in northeast England, filed for administration.
“We need to make sure the UK environment as a whole is competitive and has its position on the world stage,” said LEVC managing director Chris Allen.
READY TO ACCELERATE
Geely owns multiple brands including Volvo (VOLCARb.ST) and – via a joint venture with Volvo – Polestar . Zeekr, another brand in the group, filed for a U.S. initial public offering last month.
As such, Geely faces a complexity that larger EV makers BYD (002594.SZ) and Tesla (TSLA.O) have avoided.
Allen said LEVC was exploring a range of commercial and passenger car models on a common electric platform. It can lean on other group brands that already have EVs to “move forward in a fast, agile way”.
The company already uses an infotainment system and software developed by Volvo and a steering wheel from the Swedish carmaker, allowing it to cut costs, Allen said.
“There’s nothing we couldn’t deliver in a very short time period if we needed to, but it’s just a question of timing,” he said, adding LEVC could easily have a full range of EVs on the road within five years.
“But in two years time, is the industry going to be ready, is the charging infrastructure going to be there, is consumer confidence going to be there?”
LEVC currently has the capacity to build 3,000 taxis a year running on a single shift at its Coventry factory. Allen said that could easily be increased to 20,000 and the plant had room to expand. It could also lean on production in China as Lotus has, Allen said. A major car plant produces on average around 300,000 vehicles per year.
“There’s a huge amount of value in our product that hasn’t ever really been maximised,” Allen said. “This is about growing LEVC into a much more recognizable brand on a global scale and expanding our product offering into as many spaces as we can.”
($1 = 0.8095 pounds)
Reporting by Nick Carey, Additional reporting by Zoey Zhange in Shanghai and Norihiko Shirouzu in Beijing
Editing by Mark Potter
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Archer Aviation plans to build 250 air taxis in 2025
Oct 24 (Reuters) – Archer Aviation Inc (ACHR.N) said it aims to make about 250 battery-electric air taxis in 2025 and scale up production in the following years, after setting a goal of getting its aircraft certified by the end of 2024.
“In our first year, we will build 250 aircraft, our second year will build 500 aircraft, our third year will build 650 aircraft and then we scale it up to around 2,000 aircraft per year,” CEO Adam Goldstein told Reuters in an interview.
Archer aims to certify its pilot-plus-four-passenger aircraft, ‘Midnight’, by end-2024, though the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is still in the process of drawing up certification rules for these futuristic aircraft.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
“In terms of aircraft production, we have estimated in our Archer model ~20 units in 2025,” JPM analyst Bill Peterson said.
“We are not negative on the space, but think it will take a little longer to play out with the ramp not as steep as these companies had projected in their SPAC decks from over a year ago,” he added.
Archer shares haven fallen 54% so far this year.
Once certified, the California-based start-up’s electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft will compete in a crowded market with dozens of other developers such as Joby Aviation Inc (JOBY.N) and Vertical Aerospace Ltd (M00.F) vying to revamp urban transportation.
The nascent sector, which is backed by industrial heavyweights such as Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) and Delta Air Lines (DAL.N), still faces significant challenges relating to certification, developing a suitable air traffic management system and battery technology improvements, among others.
In May, the FAA said it was modifying its regulatory approach in certifying eVTOLs by defining them as powered-lift aircraft rather than small airplanes, injecting concerns over certification delays.
Goldstein anticipates the industry may see demand for a thousand eVTOL aircraft on an annual basis.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Reporting by Aishwarya Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Southeast Asia’s Grab slumps in U.S. debut after record SPAC deal
SINGAPORE, Dec 2 (Reuters) – Shares in Grab , Southeast Asia’s biggest ride-hailing and delivery firm, slid more than 20% in their Nasdaq debut on Thursday following the company’s record $40 billion merger with a blank-check company.
Grab’s shares rose as much as 21% minutes after the listing before retreating to trade 23% lower at $8.51 by 1834 GMT.
“The price makes no difference to me. I’m going to celebrate tonight and get back to work tomorrow,” Chief Executive Anthony Tan told Reuters just after the shares started trading.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to reuters.com
Register
The backdoor listing on Nasdaq marks the high point for the nine-year-old Singapore company that began as a ride-hailing app and now operates across 465 cities in eight countries, offering food deliveries, payments, insurance and investment products.
Grab kicked off the biggest U.S. listing by a Southeast Asian company with a bell-ringing event in Singapore, hosted by Nasdaq and Grab’s executives.
The event was attended by about 250 people including its investors, drivers, merchants and employees, with many dressed in the company’s signature green.
Thunderous handclaps reverberated in the hotel ballroom as an emotional Tan thanked them for putting Grab and Southeast Asia’s tech economy on the global map.
CEO Tan and Tan Hooi Ling developed the company from an idea for a Harvard Business School venture competition in 2011. The two Tans are not related.
The listing comes after Grab’s April agreement to merge with U.S. tech investor Altimeter Capital Management’s SPAC, Altimeter Growth Corp (AGC.O) and raise $4.5 billion, including $750 million from Altimeter.
Grab’s flotation “will provide a bigger cash buffer” to its “cash burn”, S&P Global Ratings said in a note. But it said the company’s “credit quality continues to be constrained by its loss-making operations, and free operating cash flows could be negative over the next 12 months.”
Southeast Asia’s internet economy is forecast to double to $360 billion in gross merchandise value by 2025, prompting Grab’s rivals, including regional internet firm Sea Ltd (SE.N) and Indonesia’s GoTo Group, to bulk up.
GoTo plans a local IPO in 2022 after completing an expected $2 billion private fundraising, sources have told Reuters. A U.S. listing will follow the Jakarta offering.
“Longer term, we’re really excited about Grab Financial Group,” said Chris Conforti, partner at Altimeter Capital, referring to Grab’s financial services unit. “I think the bell curve on that is much wider in terms of what the outcome could be, but it could be extremely large.”
BONANZA FOR BACKERS
CEO Tan, 39, expanded Grab into a regional operation with a range of services, after launching it as a taxi app in Malaysia in 2012. It later moved its headquarters to Singapore.
“What we have shown to the world is that home grown tech companies can develop great technology that can compete globally, even when international players are in town,” Tan told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday. “We can compete and win.”
He will control 60.4% of voting rights along with Grab’s co-founder, and president Ming Maa, but hold only a 3.3% stake with them.
Grab’s listing brings a payday bonanza to early backers such as Japan’s SoftBank (9984.T) and Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing, which invested as early as 2014.
They were later joined by the likes of Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T), Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) and Japanese megabank MUFG (8306.T). Uber became a Grab shareholder in 2018 after selling its Southeast Asian business to Grab following a five-year battle.
In September, Grab cut its full-year adjusted net sales forecasts, citing renewed uncertainty over pandemic curbs on movement.
Third-quarter revenue fell 9% from a year earlier and its adjusted loss before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) widened 66% to $212 million. GMV in the quarter rose to a record $4 billion.
It aims to turn profitable on an EBITDA basis in 2023.
JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley were the lead placement agents on the fundraising, while Evercore and UBS were the co-placement agents.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to reuters.com
Register
Reporting by Anshuman Daga and Aradhana Aravindan; Additional reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; Editing by William Mallard, Kirsten Donovan, Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Susan Fenton
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.