BY AUTOMOTIVE VENTURES | 1 MAY 2023 | VIEW ONLINE ➡️

We have a new deal for our Investment Club members. It's free to join. (Link)

EV's are about 27% more expensive to repair than comparable ICE models. Insurance companies will be forced to respond by raising prices. (Link)Mercedes-Benz is offering an "Acceleration Increase On-Demand" upgrade on some models, which comes with a choice of a one-time purchase for the lifetime of the vehicle or flexibility of monthly and yearly options. The upgrade doesn't require a trip to a dealership. More features will be added to the store in the months ahead, but Mercedes-Benz promises it will not offer hardwired, standard features – such as heated seats – as digital extras. (Link)A combination of price cuts and ho-hum sales figures so far this year have squeezed Tesla's automotive gross margins, putting the EV maker's lofty valuation at risk. (Link)Musk articulated his strategy behind the price cuts, giving priority to continued sales growth at the expense of near-term profitability. Musk maintains he is making a 21st-century gamble that he can, over time, profit from future software subscription-style revenue from Tesla owners, including for autonomous-driving capabilities. (Link)The Jobsian theory is that Elon Musk is bringing Silicon Valley tactics to the EV industry. Just as the iPhone rendered Nokia and Motorola devices obsolete, Musk wants and needs to obliterate Rivian and Lucid Motors. (Link)Creditors holding about 90% of Carvana’s bonds have been pitching the beleaguered used-car company on ways to pare down debt and improve liquidity, including a proposal for a debt-for-equity swap. (Link)States have taxed motorists at the pump with a gas tax for more than a century. As EVs gain ground, what happens when folks stop refueling altogether? State lawmakers are increasingly imposing annual fees on EV owners, arguing they should pay up because they still rely on public infrastructure to get around. (Link)Despite electric vehicle tax credits and significant efforts to expand public charging, the share of new-vehicle shoppers who will avoid EVs has grown over the past three months, according to J.D. Power. Resistance includes concerns about the lack of public charging infrastructure and high prices, based on responses from about 2,000 new-vehicle shoppers. (Link)While price is still one of the biggest barriers to widespread electric car adoption, EVs could cost the same as gas-powered ones as soon as 2025, a new analysis said — but there's a caveat. It's as long as shoppers buy small EVs. (Link)A UK study claims battery electric vehicles are depreciating so fast that some lose more than half their value in just three years. The research claims that BEVs on average will lose 51% of their purchase value from 2020 to 2023, compared to just 37% for gasoline ICE-powered vehicles. (Link)'The Future of the Car Dealer' publication from OC&C Strategy Consultants: physical dealerships enjoy the economic advantages of combining new/used/aftersales, stock access, and a low logistics cost relative to online players. (Link)Have a great week,Steve Greenfield

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🤼‍♂️ Scott Case from Recurrent has thrown down the gauntlet: we're putting $200 USD of cold, hard cash on whether we get to 50% EVs (as a percent of new passenger cars sold) by 2030. Scott has the "over" and I'm taking the "under". Vote now! (Link)

🎤 I was on Zach Klempf's Used Car Dealer Podcast. (Link)🗞️ On this week's Future of Automotive segment on CBT News, I examine why the automotive technology sector will continue to experience strong M&A activity. (Link)🎤 I'll be your MC for the Reuters Automotive Retail 2023 conference May 16th/17th in Las Vegas. (Link)👥 Great conversation between Recurrent's Scott Case and CarDealershipGuy. (Link)🎤 I spoke to the latest cohort of Capital One Accelerator Program entrepreneurs. (Link)

🗞️ CEoutlook reviewed my keynote presentation from the GOFAST 2023 Mobile Expo. (Link)

📰 We have a new deal for our Automotive Ventures Investment Club members. There is no cost to join. (Link)

🌟 I-5O is

 a computer vision platform for manufacturing. Measure and improve manual production processes using AI-powered vision systems. (Link)

🌟 

BaTTeRi

offers EV Charging as a Service (CaaS), with zero infrastructure, based on a proprietary charging robot, Thomas: enabling rapid DC EV charging in every parking spot.

 (Link)

✈️ Air Mobility & SpaceUrsa Major closed $100 million in a Series D round. Ursa is building a 5,000-pound liquid oxygen and kerosene engine called Hadley and a much larger, 10x more powerful Ripley engine with a 50,000-pound thrust. (Link)Whisper Aero closed a $32 million Series A. The company has validated that it can fly a 55-pound drone with its electric ducted fan at an altitude of 200 feet that is completely undetectable, at least by noise, from the ground. (Link)

🦾 Autonomy, Robotics & AI

CorrActions, an Israeli startup that built a driver monitoring system that can understand a driver’s cognitive state, has raised a strategic investment from Volvo Cars Tech Fund. The target for this round is $6 million. (Link)PreAct Technologies, a market leader in near-field software-definable flash LiDAR technology, announced the second close of the company’s Series B funding round. PreAct raised a total of $20 million in the Series B. (Link)

⚡Electrification & Alternative Fuels

Blink Charging announced the acquisition of Envoy Technologies, a software and mobility service company offering shared electric vehicles as an amenity for national real estate developers and owners. (Link)E-magy, focused on drastically increasing the energy efficiency of batteries by replacing graphite with a silicon material it's developed (and avoiding some of the pitfalls of conventional silicon), has raised €15m. (Link)GM Ventures has made a strategic investment in a leading energy storage and advanced materials company, Nanoramic Laboratories. Nanoramic's proprietary Neocarbonix® is electrode technology for EV lithium-ion batteries, which targets improvements in EV battery cost, efficiency, and sustainability. (Link)Optimus Technologies, Inc., a technology company that provides an advanced fuel system technology enabling heavy-duty diesel engines to operate on 100% biodiesel, announced a $17.8 million Series A funding round. (Link)Vietnamese EV automaker VINFAST is getting a $2.5 billion injection of capital as it pursues an ambitious plan to woo U.S. consumers with a slate of electric SUVs and crossovers. (Link)Helsinki-based electric vehicle charging platform Virta has raised €85 million, comprised of a €65 million equity investment and a €20 million grant. Virta has 1,000 professional EV charging businesses in 35 countries operating their services via Virta’s platform, including roaming. Virta’s network offers EV drivers access to over 350,000 charging points. (Link)

💵Finance & Insurance

Direct Line Group has acquired By Miles, a UK-based insurance startup launched in 2016 to offer pay-per-mile insurance. By Miles, which raised $26.5 million in funding, has sold over 100k policies since launching and it currently has 50k customers, writing £26 million of gross written premium. (Link)

INSHUR, a global on-demand insurance provider, has acquired American Business Insurance Services, to expand its operations across the U.S. (Link)

🏂💄Media & Lifestyle

Car Space is nearing its opening in North Raleigh – and the company has raised $1.5 million in Seed capital. Car Space offers a startup coworking space with a unique spin: A place to work, see some of the world’s best “hypercars” and socialize through a private club. (Link)Rinsed, the provider of carwash point-of-sale hardware and CRM, announced a $20 million Series B investment. The company has seen significant demand for its customer relationship management software (CRM) platform, now serving over 1,300 carwashes nationwide (an increase of over 400% in the past year). (Link)

🛴 MicromobilityLuup has raised a total of approximately 4.5 billion yen, 3.8 billion yen through equity issuance and 0.7 billion yen through debt and asset financing. With the mission to “create an infrastructure that makes the entire city ‘a station front,’” Luup provides a sharing service for electric, compact, and single-passenger micromobility in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Yokohama, Utsunomiya, and Kobe. (Link)

📱Shared Mobility & Subscription

Indian transport technology startup Chalo Mobility has secured about $26.25 million in funding. (Link)Berlin-based RYDES raised €3.5 million in a Seed funding round. The startup provides companies with a platform aimed at offering employees a monthly mobility budget in lieu of having to submit expense forms after the fact. (Link)

 🚛Supply Chain & Logistics

Cyclic Materials, a circular supply chain company focused on recycling rare earth elements (REE), raised a $27 million Series A funding round. (Link)

🏭Vehicle Production & Assembly

Bosch will acquire the assets of U.S. chipmaker TSI Semiconductors to expand its semiconductor business with silicon carbide chips (SiC). Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. (Link)

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