Google Meet, which became free to use at the end of April, passes 50M installs on the Play Store, after passing 5M at the beginning of March — Due to the coronavirus pandemic, most people are stuck at home and looking for ways to keep in touch with each other.
Apple says it's reopening 25 US stores this week plus 12 stores in Canada, adding to nearly 100 global locations that have reopened so far — - Company has 100 stores back in operation after virus closures — Plans temperature checks and face coverings at every location
In mid-March, Apple closed all of its stores outside of China “until further notice.” It was a sweeping — but necessary — move for a world facing down a growing pandemic. In a statement issued today until the title, “To our Customers,” Retail SVP Deirdre O’Brien offered insight into the company’s plans to reopen locations.
Nearly 100 stores have already resumed services, according to O’Brien — though the famously open retail spaces are taking on a new look in the face of the highly contagious novel coronavirus. “In every store, we’re focused on limiting occupancy and giving everybody lots of room, and renewing our focus on one‑on‑one, personalized service at the Genius Bar and throughout the store,” she writes.
A spokesperson for the company adds, “Next week we’ll continue our very gradual and thoughtful reopening of US stores, adding more than 25 locations in seven states. While we know many customers are eager for their local store to reopen, our commitment is to reopen our stores when we are confident the environment is safe. We miss our customers and look forward to seeing them again soon.”
As seen in the above image, face covers will be required for both employees and customers alike — already a legal requirement in many locales. More unusual for many retail establishments is the addition of temperature checks now conducted at the store’s entrance, coupled with posted health questions. Apple has also instituted deeper cleaning on all surfaces, including display products.
That last point is an important one, given how much of the company’s store layout revolves around hands-on products. Curb-side pick and drop off have been added, as well, for those who understandably would like to avoid the in-person experience.
As for when each location reopens, Apple says it’s monitoring health trends and local/national guidance to determine the timeframe. You can check your local store’s status here. And as the conversation of secondary waves begin to become a reality in many areas, O’Brien says the company will close stores down again, if necessary. “These are not decisions we rush into,” she writes, “and a store opening in no way means that we won’t take the preventative step of closing it again should local conditions warrant.”
The Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click The Station — to receive it every Saturday in your inbox.
Hi and welcome back to The Station, I’m your host Kirsten Korosec, senior transportation reporter at TechCrunch. If you’re interested in all the future and present ways people and packages move from Point A to Point B, you’re in the right place.
It felt like Tesla dominated the news cycle once again this week. (Checks list of published articles) And yep, it sure did. There was other mobility news though, including layoffs at self-driving company Cruise and new rules that Uber is rolling out Monday that will change the ride-hailing experience for the foreseeable future.
Reach out and email me at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com to share thoughts, criticisms, offer up opinions or tips. You can also send a direct message to me at Twitter — @kirstenkorosec.
Shall we get down to it? Vamos.
The micromobbin’ space got more crowded this week as Bolt announced it would launch an electric scooter service in more than 45 cities this summer. Bolt, a big competitor to Uber in Europe and Africa, has raised more than $200 million from investors like Daimler and Didi Chuxing.
Meanwhile, Bird, Lime, Voi and Tier are reportedly in talks with local authorities in the U.K. to launch electric scooter trials as early as next month. The U.K. originally planned to start allowing companies to operate next year, but that timeline has been pushed up amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Over in the land of e-bikes … The National Park Service has proposed revisions to rules regarding e-bike use on federal lands. The proposal is open for public comment until June 8, 2020.
The proposed regulations, which you should check out here, would exclude e-bikes from the definition of motor vehicle. Park superintendents would have the authority to open up paths and roads designated for bicycles to e-bikes.
There are conditions. Ultimately, the authority will rest with that particular superintendent, which means this is not an e-bike free-for-all in national parks. E-bike riders will have to pedal — no throttle only — in non-motorized areas and they would still be prohibited in designated wilderness areas.
PeopleForBikes, a non-profit organization and bicycle advocacy group, has loads more information on the proposed rulemaking.
Speaking of e-bikes, these modes of transportation are poised to be big winners this year. We’ve highlighted some of the companies that have already seen gains since the COVID-19 pandemic. This week, a pair of stories provide some insight into this trend. Bloomberg focused on Specialized Bike Components Inc and The Verge did a deep dive into the broader e-bikes industry. One snippet from The Verge article gives you some idea of how things are shaping up for e-bike companies: Seattle-based Rad Power Bikes said its sales in April increased a whopping 297% year over year; its sales to business customers in the delivery sector also rose 191% from March to April this year.
It’s not e-bike boom times for everyone though. The Verge reported that GM killed off its first electric bike called ARIV.
— Megan Rose Dickey and Kirsten Korosec
Deals — they are slim, but they’re still happenin’.
It seems like just yesterday that Waymo announced it had raised $2.25 billion — its first external investment — in a round led by Silver Lake, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Mubadala Investment Company. Magna, Andreessen Horowitz and AutoNation and its parent company Alphabet also participated.
But what’s this? A mere two months later Waymo is back. The autonomous vehicle company said it has added another $750 million to the round, bringing the total size of the financing to $3 billion. The extension comes from new investors, including those managed by T. Rowe Price, Perry Creek Capital, Fidelity Management and Research Company and others. Side note: T. Rowe Price is also a major backer of rival Cruise.
Other deals:
Uber approached Grubhub in February with an all-stock takeover offer and the companies have been in talks since then, according to the WSJ, which broke the story. Grubhub proposed Uber pay 2.15 of its shares for each Grubhub share. Uber didn’t bite and now discussions are aimed at a lower price.
TechCrunch’s Alex Wilhelm unpacks the deal in terms of its cost and explains why Uber has to pay in stock, how large a combined Uber Eats/Grubhub entity would be compared to its competition and why adjusted EBITDA helps us understand how this acquisition could give Uber’s bottom line a shot in the arm.
Intel announced its latest tranche of deals: $132 million invested in 11 startups. The deals speak to some of the company’s most strategic priorities currently and covers artificial intelligence, autonomous computing and chip design.
DispatchTrack, which created a platform for last-mile deliveries to help companies mimic Amazon-like experiences by planning and tracking deliveries more easily, has closed a $144 million investment from a single investor. This is the company’s first-ever funding after scaling up as a bootstrapped startup to support more than 60 million deliveries per year.
VanMoof, the Dutch e-bike startup that launched in 2009, raised $13.5 million from London VC Balderton Capital and SINBON Electronics, the Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer that is its bike assembly partner.
If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it’s how complex and sensitive our supply chain is. Startups going after this sector, whether it’s in subcategories like freight, autonomous robots or logistics, might find a more welcoming investor community.
I’ll be rounding up news and tips in this category when there is news to share. This week, there was.
The United States Postal Service pushed back the deadline for official bids to make its next-generation mail truck due to COVID-19, Trucks.com reported.
Curri, an on-demand construction materials delivery service co-founded by Matt Lafferty and Brian Gonzalez, has started to offer its services in all 50 states. The company, which graduated from Y Combinator’s demo day about a year ago, says its service saves customers roughly half the cost of deploying an in-house fleet for delivery.
Freight mobility company Einride struck a partnership with Oatly to help the plant-based oat drink company transition to electric delivery trucks. The partnership will kick off in the fourth quarter of 2020 in Sweden, where both companies are based.
Cruise car in Hayes Valley, San Francisco.
Just when I think layoffs are slowing, another round of announcements or tips about cuts head my way. Amid the furloughs and layoffs, there has also been some executive reshuffling.
A few layoffs and executive moves stood out this week, namely cuts at Cruise and Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s decision to put the head of paint operations in charge of all production at the company’s factory in Fremont, California.
Let’s dig in.
On the same day that Musk defied local regulations and said he would reopen Tesla’s factory in Fremont, California, the CEO put a new person in charge of production.
Musk named Richard Miller, who was director of paint operations at Tesla, to head production at the factory, according to an internal email sent to employees and viewed by TechCrunch. It appears that Miller replaces Jatinder Dhillon, who was the company’s manufacturing director. CNBC had reported in March that Dhillon had left the company, although his LinkedIn profile still shows he is at the company and in the same role.
The email reads, “Due to excellent performance as head of paint operations in Fremont, Richard Miller is hereby promoted to overall head of Fremont Production. Congratulations!”
The timing of this, and who he picked, matters here and suggests that the reopening is more chaotic and disorganized than Musk or Tesla would want folks to believe.
Meanwhile, I got my hands on the memo sent by Cruise CEO Dan Ammann that informed staff of cuts and realignment of resources. (Bloomberg was the first to report the cuts.)
The company said it’s cutting nearly 8% of its more than 1,800-member workforce to reduce costs. The layoffs will affect employees in Cruise’s product, marketing and rideshare business units, according to the memo.
The official statement might rub those who were let go the wrong way. It reads: “In this time of great change, we’re fortunate to have a crystal clear mission and billions in the bank. The actions we took today reflect us doubling down on our engineering work and engineering talent.”
The cuts are notable. But so is the decision by the company to close its Pasadena office, which housed its lidar team. Cruise acquired in 2017 a lidar startup based in Pasadena called Strobe. According to the memo and one source, the lidar team is being folded into its San Francisco operations.
Other moves:
Zomato, an India-headquartered food delivery startup, cut 13% of its workforce and reduced pay for remaining employees. The 11-year-old firm didn’t disclose the exact number of people it was letting go, but the number is above 500.
Fair, the car subscription startup backed by hundreds of millions of dollars from SoftBank and others, has a new CEO. The company announced that Bradley Stewart, who had been CEO of aviation startup XOJet from 2013 to 2018 (when it was acquired by Vista Global), will now lead the company. Stewart confirmed in an interview that Fair is working on raising another round of funding that will include both equity and debt to push ahead on its business now focused squarely on car subscriptions for consumers.
As Harley-Davidson rounds year one on its electric debut, we’re still riding in the fog on how to evaluate the company’s EV pivot, according to TechCrunch reporter Jake Bright.
The American symbol of gas, chrome and steel released its first production electric motorcycle, the LiveWire, in September 2019, but still hasn’t offered sales data. Instead of posting a separate line for EV purchases in its 2019 and 2020 financial reporting, Harley folded LiveWire units sold into its “Cruiser” sales stats, that include some 16 different motorcycle models.
HD’s electric debut received mostly positive reviews from motorcycle stalwarts, but without sales data it’s difficult to evaluate the company’s shift to electric.
The LiveWire is supposed to lead a future line-up of EVs planned by Harley-Davidson — spanning motorcycles, bicycles and scooters.
The company saw a decline in sales and continued losses in its first quarter financials, but “remains committed to advancing our efforts in electric,” HD’s new CEO, Jochen Zeitz, said.
Another component to grading Harley Davidson’s foray into electric is seeing the follow on products to the $29K LiveWire, which was priced too high for the millennial market.
“The company needs to release EV-specific sales data and tell us what’s next in its voltage-powered lineup,” Bright wrote in this feature on Harley Davidson’s electric ambitions and the e-motorcycle market.
Here’s some other stuff that got my attention.
Of course, I’ll kick it off this must-read list with a survey we conducted with seven venture capitalists, including Ernestine Fu of Alsop Louie Partners, Stonly Baptiste & Shaun Abrahamson from Urban.us, Rob Coneybeer with Shasta Ventures, Shahin Farshchi of Lux Capital, Kate Schox with Trucks VC and Jeff Peters from Autotech Ventures.
We asked these VCs their thoughts and advice for mobility startups in this COVDI-19 era.
New York City celebrated its longest stretch of days without a pedestrian death in decades, The Hill reported.
Greentech Media interviewed McDonald’s former global product director, James Wehner, about his plans to shake up EV charging in his new role as chief technology officer at Engenie, the U.K.-based charging specialist.
Self-driving vehicle startup Aurora released a blog post explaining its process for rapidly converting on-road events into virtual tests.
Tesla plans to unveil new advanced battery technology it has developed that can produce power sources for its EVs which last for “millions of miles” and can be produced at low costs, Reuters reported.
Argo AI, the autonomous vehicle technology startup backed by Ford and Volkswagen, has developed a return-to-the road playbook. The guide lays out a detailed plan on how it will resume AV testing while keeping its employees safe.
Mukesh Ambani’s Jio Platforms has agreed to sell 1.34% stake to General Atlantic, the latest deal in a series of deals the top Indian telecom operator has secured in recent weeks.
On Sunday, General Atlantic said it would invest $869.8 million in the Indian firm, joining Facebook, Silver Lake, and Vista Equity Partners that have made sizeable bets on the three-and-a-half-year old Indian firm.
General Atlantic’s investment values Jio Platforms at $65 billion (equity valuation) — the same valuation implied by the Silver Lake and Vista deals and a 12.5% premium over Facebook’s deal, the Indian firm said.
Sunday’s announcement further illustrates the growing appeal of Jio Platforms, which has raised $8.85 billion in the last one month, to foreign investors looking for a slice in the fast-growing world’s second largest internet market.
General Atlantic, a high profile investor in consumer tech space, has invested in dozens of firms such as Airbnb, Alibaba, Ant Financial, Box, ByteDance, Facebook, India’s NoBroker, Slack, Snapchat, and Uber.
“General Atlantic shares our vision of a Digital Society for India and strongly believes in the transformative power of digitization in enriching the lives of 1.3 billion Indians. We are excited to leverage General Atlantic’sproven global expertise and strategic insights across 40 years of technology investing for the benefit of Jio,” said Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Jio Platforms-parent firm Reliance Industries, in a statement.
More to follow…
The United Launch Alliance (ULA) is targeting a liftoff time of 9:14 AM EDT (6:14 AM PDT) today for an Atlas V rockets carrying the Boeing-built X-37B orbital test vehicle on behalf of the U.S. space force, which is an autonomous winged spaceplane that looks a little like a scaled down version of the Space Shuttle.
This is the sixth mission for the X-37B, though it’s the first flown under the U.S. Space Force’s supervision, since the space plane was previously operated by the Air Force before the formation of the new wing of the U.S. armed forces.
The X-37B runs various missions for the U.S., though its specific aims are actually classified. The uncrewed test vehicle spends long periods on orbit circling the Earth while conducting these missions, with its longest mission to date being a record 780 days for its flight that landed on October 27.
This launch was rescheduled from Saturday, due to poor weather conditions, and its delay means that the SpaceX Starlink mission that was scheduled to take off from Kennedy in Florida today is now pushed out to Tuesday, due to a tropical storm that looks to be developing on Monday at its original backup date.
French startup Angell has signed a wide-ranging partnership with SEB, the French industrial company behind All-Clad, Krups, Moulinex, Rowenta, Tefal and others. As part of the deal, SEB will manufacture Angell’s electric bikes in a factory in Is-sur-Tille near Dijon, France.
SEB’s investment arm, SEB Alliance, is also investing in Angell. The terms of the deal are undisclosed, but Angell says it plans to raise between $7.6 and $21.7 million (between €7 and €20 million) with a group of investors that include SEB.
“We originally planned to manufacture 1,500 bikes in 2020,” Angell founder Marc Simoncini told me. “We realized that we were selling more bikes than expected. We now expect to sell 10,000 bikes.”
Angell has accepted 2,000 pre-orders over the past six months — 75% in France and 25% from the rest of the world. But pre-orders accelerated drastically with the lockdown in France. During the month of May, Angell expects to sell three times more bikes than during an average month.
Originally, Angell planned to build its own factory and assemble bikes itself. SEB is allocating 25 employees on the production line and production should start at the end of May. It should definitely make things move faster and reduce potential delays.
Angell unveiled its smart electric bike in November 2019. It has a 2.4-inch touch screen, an aluminum frame, integrated lights and a removable battery.
Like other connected bikes from Cowboy and VanMoof, it pairs with your phone using Bluetooth. This way, the Angell bike has an integrated lock and alarm system. There are also an integrated GPS chip and cellular modem to track it if it ever gets stolen.
But Angell is going one step further with the integrated display. You can select the level of assistance and display information on the screen, such as speed, calories, battery level and distance. It can also display turn-by-turn directions. Your handlebar also vibrates to indicate when you’re supposed to turn left or right.
The company is also announcing a second model this week, the Angell/S. It is a smaller, lighter version of the bike with a step-through frame. Both models feature the same battery, same motor and same electronics. They also both cost €2,690 ($2,900).
Angell now expects to deliver the first batch of bikes in July. By the end of the summer, new customers should be able to order a bike and get delivered within 10 days. Eventually, the company will also roll out a full line of accessories, such as fenders, baskets and mirrors.
US Secret Service memo warns a crime ring is targeting state unemployment insurance programs to commit fraud by using data belonging to identity theft victims — A well-organized Nigerian crime ring is exploiting the COVID-19 crisis by committing large-scale fraud against multiple state …
Motorola is lining up a slew of launches in India. The Lenovo-owned smartphone brands plans to launch the Moto Edge+ in India on May 19 and just a few days after, the company will launch the Moto G8 Power Lite. The launch date of the latter was confirmed by Flipkart via its website.
The Moto G8 Power Lite launched last month globally and features a large 5,000mAh battery and a 6.5-inch display along with triple rear cameras. It’s expected to be positioned as a budget smartphone in India.
Motorola Moto G8 Power Lite specs and featuresThe Motorola G8 Power Lite is part of the famous G-series from Moto and offers a 6.5-inch LCD panel with 20:9 aspect ratio. The phone will come with a waterdrop notch housing the front camera.
Motorola has confirmed the smartphone is splash resistant and runs on the MediaTek Helio P35 SoC paired with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage. There’s also an option to increase the storage via a dedicated microSD card slot.
On the back are three cameras that includes a 16MP primary shooter with f/2.0 aperture, a 2MP macro lens and a 2MP depth sensor. On the front, there’s an 8MP camera for selfies.
The Moto G8 Power Lite will house a 5,000mAh battery with support for 10W charging. The phone will run on stock Android 9 Pie and will have a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor.
Motorola Moto G8 Power Lite: Expected price in IndiaThe Moto G8 Power Lite is priced globally at EUR 169 which roughly converts to Rs 13,870 in India. The phone will be sold via Flipkart. More details regarding the smartphone will be revealed on May 21. The Moto G8 Power Lite will be available in Arctic Blue and Royal Blue colour variants.
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The Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro Max went on its first sale last week, and the smartphone has already started to receive a new software update that brings the April 2020 security patch. The changelog doesn’t include any other new features and is 338MB in size.
The Redmi Note 9 Pro Max was launched back in March, and while the April security patch is coming a month late (we are already in May), some of Realme’s smartphones have already started receiving the May update.
The firmware version of the new update is MIUI v11.0.2.0.QJXINXM. You can check for the update by going to About Phone - Software Updates - Check for updates. Usually, it takes some time for all users to receive the update as its released in batches.
The new was first broken by Fonearena and we were able to independently verify the patch which came to the review unit in our lab.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro Max specs and price in IndiaThe Redmi Note 9 Pro Max is powered by the Snapdragon 720G SoC coupled with up to 8GB RAM. The phone features a large 6.67-inch FHD+ LCD display with 20:9 aspect ratio and a punch-hole selfie camera. There’s a 64MP quad camera setup at the back which includes an 8MP ultrawide lens, 5MP macro lens and a 2MP depth sensor. On the front is a 32MP selfie camera. The phone comes with up to 128GB storage and a 5,020mAh battery that gets topped by 33W fast charging.
The Redmi Note 9 Pro Max starts at Rs 16,499 for the 6GB RAM variant with 64GB storage while the 6+128GB is priced at Rs 17,999 and the top variant with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage retails for Rs 19,999.
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Meir Orbach / CTech : Docs: Israeli AI chip startup Hailo is pursuing an urgent IPO via a SPAC merger at a valuation of less than $500M; ...
