Tech Crunch Mobility: Elon’s admission | Tech Crunch

Overview

Tesla earnings came and went, and much of it fell into the “we expected this” category. Investors seemed surprised by the $1.4 billion in free cash flow, which gave shares a brief bump, and revenue met or slightly exceeded expectations, depending on which batch of analysts you reviewed.

The earnings call, however, did deliver one eyebrow-raising moment that prompted readers (including some ex-Tesla engineers and other founders in the industry) to reach out to me with some schadenfreude-tinted prose. CEO Elon Musk admitted that millions of Tesla owners will need hardware upgrades to run a future, more capable version of its Full Self-Driving software that doesn’t require human supervision.

Details

There are financial and legal implications for Tesla. As senior reporter Sean O’Kane wrote, Tesla owners with Hardware 3 cars have spent years bugging the company and Musk for a straight answer about whether they would be able to run this advanced version of Full Self-Driving — which, it should be noted, Tesla has not yet released or even proven it is capable of releasing. Tesla sold these Hardware 3 cars between 2019 and 2023.

Now, here is the kicker and it made me guffaw. Musk said the company would need to physically upgrade each of these vehicles, a feat that would require Tesla to set up microfactories in several major cities to service potentially millions of vehicles.

Microfactories? Yes, you heard correctly. This is not going to be cheap, and it could be one of the line items in Tesla’s capital expenditures budget, which it expanded to a whopping $25 billion this year.

Senior reporter Sean O’Kane obtained (and verified) an internal memo sent by Redwood Materials founder and CEO JB Straubel that announced layoffs and a restructuring. (Thanks to the little bird who shared it.) Straubel is a former CTO of Tesla.

Meet your next investor or portfolio startup at Disrupt

Your next round. Your next hire. Your next breakout opportunity. Find it at Tech Crunch Disrupt 2026, where 10,000+ founders, investors, and tech leaders gather for three days of 250+ tactical sessions, powerful introductions, and market-defining innovation. Register now to save up to $410.

Meet your next investor or portfolio startup at Disrupt

Your next round. Your next hire. Your next breakout opportunity. Find it at Tech Crunch Disrupt 2026, where 10,000+ founders, investors, and tech leaders gather for three days of 250+ tactical sessions, powerful introductions, and market-defining innovation. Register now to save up to $410.

The company laid off around 135 employees, or roughly 10% of its workforce, as it restructures to better accommodate its growing energy storage business. O’Kane later learned several executives have also recently left. Chief operating officer Chris Lister is retiring, and at least three other VPs have left in recent months, with the company telling Tech Crunch there has been a focus on reducing layers of management.

Last week, I shared that a new autonomous hauler startup (think a cabless autonomous big rig) backed by Eclipse was about to break cover and announce a seed round, thanks to a little bird. Welp, it happened just days later.

The San Francisco-based startup, called Humble Robotics, raised $24 million in a seed round. Eclipse led the round, which also included backing by Energy Impact Partners and Red Blue Capital, a small early-stage VC firm that is surprisingly active.

As I had been told, Humble really is chock-full of Silicon Valley elite, including founder Eyal Cohen, who previously had stints at Apple special projects, Uber ATG, Pronto, and Waabi. He also founded Spark AI, which was acquired by John Deere in 2023.

Other execs include Drew Gray, who has a similarly AV-heavy résumé, including early days at Cruise, before jumping over to self-driving trucks startup Otto, which was acquired by Uber. After leaving Uber, he became CTO at Voyage, which was then acquired by Cruise.

A full-circle moment, cemented by this fun fact: Humble Robotics is in the same building Cruise was in right after the startup moved out of founder Kyle Vogt’s garage. I know, we keep circling back to 2016.

Except it’s not 2016, and Cohen and Gray talked to me about how much has changed since then, why this is the time to launch an AV startup, and where the industry is headed. Stay tuned for that story next week.

Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O’Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com.

Lyft stuck to the North American market for much of its history, while Uber took a global, expand-at-all-costs strategy. Lyft has been trying to catch up since last year when it bought German multi-mobility app Freenow from BMW and Mercedes-Benz Mobility for about $197 million in cash.

Now it’s acquiring ride-hailing app Gett’s U. K. business. Lyft says the deal will give it the majority of registered black cab drivers across Greater London on the Lyft platform. The company didn’t disclose the terms, but Calcalist reported it was $55 million.

The company is also building out other means of transport in the region, including its recently renewed partnership with Serco to provide the bikes and stations for Europe’s bike-share system Santander Cycles. Lyft is also planning to start testing autonomous rides in London with Baidu later this year.

A&K Robotics, a Vancouver, Canada-based maker of autonomous vehicles for airports, raised an $8 million CAD Series A round led by BDC’s Industrial Innovation Venture Fund and Vantage Futures.

Decade Energy, which provides power infrastructure at logistics depots, raised €22 million in funding led by Eiffel Investment Group and SET Ventures, along with existing investors.

Reliable Robotics, a Silicon Valley startup developing autonomous systems for aircraft, raised $160 million in a round led by Nimble Partners, existing backers Eclipse, Lightspeed, Coatue, and Pathbreaker Ventures, and new investors Island Green Capital, Socium Ventures, AE Ventures (a strategic partner of the Boeing Company), RTX Ventures, Presidio Ventures (Sumitomo Corporation), UP. Partners, KAS Venture Partners, What If Ventures, Calm Ventures, Gaingels, and Mana Ventures. History lesson: Co-founder and CEO Robert Rose had a brief stint at Tesla where he was senior director of Autopilot and helped ship that first iteration in 2015.

Plus AI and blank-check company Churchill Capital Corp IX terminated its SPAC merger deal due to market conditions.

Porsche is selling its stake in the Bugatti Rimac joint venture, which it formed in 2021, as well as electric-vehicle maker Rimac Group. Porsche, which holds a 20.6% stake in Rimac and a 45% stake in the joint venture, is selling to HOF Capital. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.

Einride is adding 75 of its electric heavy-duty trucks to Amazon’s Relay freight network as part of a deal that gives the Swedish startup a toehold in the e-commerce giant’s operations.

Ford and Chinese automaker Geely reportedly held talks about extending a European tie-up into the U. S., the Wall Street Journal reported. The implications, of course, would be Chinese vehicles entering the U. S. market. But it sounds like talks have stalled, leaving this consequential deal in limbo. Bloomberg reported that Ford has denied these claims.

Porsche is adding another EV to its lineup. The Cayenne electric coupe will come to market in late summer. There’s some interesting data in my article on why this one might be a winner for Porsche.

The first customer-ready Rivian R2 SUVs rolled off the production line at its factory in Normal, Illinois, just days after it was hit by an EF-1 tornado that tore off part of the roof. Founder and CEO RJ Scaringe said Rivian doesn’t anticipate any delays to the R2, which are expected to reach customers in June.

My first experience with Apple Ultra Car Play last summer was mixed. It was great — when it worked, but it often didn’t. The problem seemed to be tied to a bug that showed two versions of the vehicle in the Bluetooth settings.

This time around, the setup was instant and it never glitched. Hooray. And it always worked. This really matters for Aston Martin, which for years was stuck with Mercedes-Benz’ old COMAND system. (Mercedes ditched that system in 2018 for its new MBUX one).

Key Takeaways

• Tesla earnings came and went, and much of it fell into the “we expected this” category
• The earnings call, however, did deliver one eyebrow-raising moment that prompted readers (including some ex-Tesla engineers and other founders in the industry) to reach out to me with some schadenfreude-tinted prose
• There are financial and legal implications for Tesla
• Now, here is the kicker and it made me guffaw