Tag: uber

  • EV startup Arrival plans dedicated car for Uber drivers

    Uber wants its drivers worldwide to make the switch to electric vehicles and has set targets of 2025 for the city of London and 2030 for Europe and North America.

    But rather than have its drivers only rely on established automakers to source their cars, Uber has partnered with British EV startup Arrival to develop a dedicated car for ride-hailing fleets.

    The car is simply known as the Arrival Car, and it’s slated for launch in the second half of 2023. Uber wants the car to be affordable and is inviting its drivers to get involved with the design process.

    A teaser shot released by Arrival on Tuesday hints at a pod-like car with seating for five. The final design for the Arrival Car will be revealed before 2021 is out.

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    This isn’t the first time an EV startup has been tapped to develop a dedicated vehicle for a business. America’s Rivian has developed an electric van specifically for Amazon deliveries.

    Arrival is particularly suited to the task as the company is focused on commercial vehicles. It’s previously unveiled a delivery van and bus. Where the company plans to stand out is through a lean production process, referred to as the microfactory. Basically, a series of robots taking up an area spanning just 4,000 square feet assembles whole vehicles using modular, pre-assembled components moved into place on autonomous sleds.

    Arrival has previously announced plans to build microfactories at locations in North and South Carolina, as well as in Bicester, United Kingdom.

    Although Arrival hasn’t delivered any vehicles yet, the company is already publicly traded on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol ARVL. It went public in March via a SPAC deal with CIIG Merger Corp, raising approximately $660 million in the process.

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  • Uber reportedly wants to offload self-driving division

    Uber is looking to sell its self-driving technology division known as Uber Advanced Technology Group, according to media reports.

    Citing three people familiar with the matter, TechCrunch reported last week that Uber is in talks to sell the Uber ATG division to Aurora Innovation, a much smaller rival in the self-driving technology space.

    Uber ATG as recently as 2019 received a $1 billion investment from a consortium of Japanese firms that included Toyota and automotive supplier Denso. At the time, Uber ATG was valued at $7.5 billion.

    But the division, which in 2018 saw one of its prototypes hit and kill a pedestrian, has been burning through cash as it seeks to develop a self-driving system, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, which could potentially be too costly for Uber as the ride-hailing giant continues to deal with the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.

    As for Aurora, the company was established in 2016 with Chris Urmson, one of the early heads of the Google Self-Driving Car Project, now Waymo, among the co-founders. Another co-founder, Sterling Anderson, was in charge of development of Tesla’s Autopilot self-driving system before he quit to join Urmson at Aurora.

    While the company initially made headlines with deals with Volkswagen Group and Hyundai, things have been quiet recently and VW Group and Hyundai have since gone on to establish more substantial deals with rival self-driving technology companies Argo AI and Aptiv, respectively.

    Unlike Uber, Aurora doesn’t plan to offer a self-driving service. Instead the company wants to sell or license its self-driving system to other firms. As a result, any deal between Uber and Aurora could see Uber end up using a self-driving system from Aurora in the future.

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  • Chatsworth Rally Show 2009

    Spener dragged his ass out of bed early on a rainy Sunday morning to go and photograph the awesome rally cars that were being showed up at Chatsworth House. The weather was POOR but he roughed it and got us some snaps anyway – good work spener!

    chatsworth-rally-show-2009

    Click here for the pictures from the chatsworth rally show