TuSimple Files for IPO and Nuro Announces Series C

We’ve written about autonomous vehicles (AVs) for people recently. Packages would like a word. We’ll start with updates from the fast lane and slow down from there.

65 mph

On Tuesday, TuSimple filed for an IPO. “Filing shows self-driving trucks still a money-loser,” a WSJ headline declared. Duh. What’s new is that we can see how much money they’re losing.

TuSimple lost $178 million in 2020, over twice as much as the year before. Revenue climbed nearly 160% year over year to $1.8 million in 2020. Why the mounting losses? TuSimple is expanding testing and rolling out of what it calls an “autonomous freight network.”

• Risk factor: TuSimple’s Chinese ties are being probed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which reviews deals for national security risks.

25 mph

On Wednesday, Nuro announced a Series C. The startup develops small, low-speed AVs sans human driving controls. US officials have given Nuro a permit to deploy up to 5,000 R2s (its second-gen vehicle) on public roads.

T. Rowe Price, Fidelity, and Baillie Gifford joined the round, along with other big names that are existing investors (SoftBank Vision Fund, Greylock). Woven Capital, Toyota’s new $800 million VC fund, also joined. We’ve really buried the lede here, because....Chipotle also joined the round.

5 mph

Today, we’re sharing an inside look at the land of delivery bots. Shannon, a friend of the Brew, recently ordered something on Prime. Amazon’s Scout robot (unexpectedly) delivered the package to her in Midtown Atlanta.

• Scouts have been “boppin' around my neighborhood a lot,” she tells us. The electric bot is also being beta tested in Tennessee, California, and Washington (state).
• Ryan tweeted a thread with more details on how the Scout delivery process works.

Big picture: You go bankrupt “gradually, then suddenly,” Ernest Hemingway used to say.

AV development is as gradual as it gets, and the bankruptcy part is always lingering. But your chances of encountering AV test services in major US cities or on interstate highways are suddenly starting to rise.