TechCrunch Mobility: Inside GM’s $900M EV battery gamble
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Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. To get this in your inbox, sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Senior reporter (and resident battery expert) Tim De Chant traveled to General Motors’ sprawling Warren Technical Center outside Detroit to learn more about the automaker’s plans to reduce the cost of its next slate of EVs. The upshot: GM is banking on LMR batteries and a new Battery Cell Development Center that is viewed as the bridge between its R&D efforts and full-scale production. Kurt Kelty, GM’s VP of battery and sustainability, provided fresh details about the company’s $900 million initiative and how this new chemistry will preserve range while slashing costs. For instance, the Chevrolet Silverado EV could be $6,000 cheaper. Read the story here. As with most companies these days, AI also makes a cameo appearance. Although I should note that AI plays more than just a supporting role at GM. I recently interviewed Sterling Anderson, GM’s chief product officer, and Jason Fischer, who is executive director of virtual integration engineering, about some of the changes inside the company and how it’s using AI. That story is coming next week, but I’ll give you a bit of a teaser. GM is using a collection of outside AI models, as well as ones it has created in-house that can be used across large swaths of the business and that — here’s the punchline — will speed up its vehicle development cycle. I’ll have more details in my article, and don’t worry, if you miss it, I will highlight it in next week’s newsletter. Finally, last week I wrote about the Ferrari Luce EV and how it doesn’t matter that it has been so widely criticized. I got some wonderful emails from you all on the topic — thanks! The poll, however, showed that as much coverage as the Luce received, many of you really don’t care about it. In the poll I asked, ‘Do you love it, hate it, or indifferent to it?’ Most of you, about 44%, are indifferent, while the remainder are equally split between love and hate. The more I think about the future of the Luce EV, the more I think this might become a ragebait purchase among those who can afford it and are deemed worthy by Ferrari to buy it.
To get the Mobility newsletter directly in your inbox and to participate in our polls, sign up here. Deals! Image Credits:Bryce Durbin The looming SpaceX IPO is the deal of the decade, certainly for the bankers and for CEO Elon Musk. But it could also affect Tesla shareholders. As part of the IPO registration process, a company will often file numerous amendments before making its public markets debut. SpaceX has filed a few already. And our eagle-eyed senior reporter Sean O’Kane spotted a new sentence added to the S-1 document that has some big implications: “We may issue a significant amount of equity in connection with future transactions.” While it is certainly possible that SpaceX will use the $75 billion it is expected to raise to snap up a variety of companies, the most likely M&A target is Tesla. This sentence was included in the risk factors and appears to be preparing future investors for the possibility of a major dilution event. Read the full story. There is another interesting deal spotted by O’Kane — this time involving Carvana and Slate Auto, the electric vehicle startup backed by Jeff Bezos. According to documents obtained by TechCrunch, Carvana has been granted the option to invest in Slate Auto. As O’Kane notes in his article, this could hint at a deeper partnership between the two companies. Other deals that got more attention … Layup Parts, a startup trying to become the Amazon of composite parts, raised $42 million in a Series A funding round led by dual-use venture fund Marlinspike, with participation from new investors Cerberus Ventures and Pinegrove Venture Partners, as well as existing backers Founders Fund and Lux Capital. Mach Industries, the three-year-old defense tech startup that now has five autonomous vehicles in development, raised a $300 million Series C at a $1.8 billion valuation. The round was led by Infinite Capital and Ribbit Capital and includes backing from Bedrock Capital, Sequoia Capital, and Khosla Ventures. Molfar Defence Technologies, a Polish-Ukrainian defense startup developing anti-drone radar systems, closed the first tranche of its €2 million funding round. Swedish investor Front Ventures committed €1.5 million, Tech.Eu reported. Spiro, the African electric mobility startup, raised $215 million in a round that pushed its valuation close to $1 billion, Bloomberg reported.
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