Arrival pauses work on its electric bus and car projects:
Anglo-American EV startup Arrival is putting its groundbreaking bus and car projects on ice as it struggles to manage its cash reserves. The Financial Times reports that the company, which said it would lay off a third of its staff last month, would now focus on completing its delivery van. Arrival said that it had anything up to 20,000 orders with UPS for the vehicle, and is expecting to get the first models out of the door later this year. That will hopefully reduce the pressure on the company's bottom line, and boost its share price, which has fallen 90 percent since it went public via a SPAC last year.
[...] The biggest tragedy from all of this is that Arrival's focus on revolutionizing public buses was a genuinely different approach from most EV makers. Buses are a fixture in pretty much every city, and while it's always better for the environment to use one over a car, making them even cleaner was a great plan. That the public project has been iced in favor of the fleet of logistics vans is not surprising, but it's certainly not a great sign for the future of public transport.
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For years, UPS has been gesturing toward a future where some of its delivery vehicles are electric, autonomous, or drones. Now, the delivery giant is taking steps to make that happen with a trio of announcements designed to boost the company's profile — and maybe its stock, too — ahead of its quarterly earnings report. It's the latest sign of UPS's ambition to future-proof its business, especially as Amazon builds out its own delivery infrastructure.
The first announcement concerns a pilot project with Waymo, the Alphabet subsidiary and leading operator of self-driving vehicles. UPS will use some of Waymo's self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans to shuttle packages between some of its stores in the Metro Phoenix area and its hub in Tempe, Arizona. The minivans won't be fully driverless; Waymo says it will keep trained safety drivers in the front seat to monitor operations. Despite the limited nature of the pilot, both Waymo and UPS say a "long-term plan" between the companies remains possible.
[...] The second announcement relates to electric vehicles. UPS says it will purchase 10,000 electric delivery vans from a UK startup called Arrival, which it will then add to its fleet in the UK, Europe, and North America over the next four years. UPS's venture capital arm will also make an investment in Arrival of an undisclosed amount.
Arrival only just emerged out of quasi-stealth in recent weeks after announcing a $110 million investment from Hyundai and Kia. Arrival has been working with UPS for several years, first announcing their partnership in 2016. Arrival says that today's vehicle order and investment will "accelerate deployment of fit-for-purpose electric fleets at scale."
[...] Lastly, UPS says it will bring its drone delivery testing to San Diego. The company has been delivering pharmaceuticals and other lightweight cargo to people's homes in North Carolina in partnership with CVS Pharmacy as well as Matternet, a drone logistics company. Now, it will start test deliveries with the University of California San Diego health system.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday August 11 2022, @07:43PM (1 child)
Oh! for the electric trolley cars we used to have!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by aafcac on Thursday August 11 2022, @07:52PM
They still exist in some areas, but they had serious issues in terms of limited ability to reroute when streets were blocked. Really, the way forward is biodiesel powered hybrid buses until such a time as going fully electric becomes viable. It's unclear to me whether we'll get battery or hydrogen fuel cell powered buses first. Batteries are OK, but depending upon the capacity may require a quick swap at the ends of the route to really replace what we've got. Unlike regular cars, buses tend not to sit around much during the day, which makes charging them a bit of an issue.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by krishnoid on Thursday August 11 2022, @07:48PM (2 children)
Sounds like a incredible vision [youtu.be] of the future, just like how they killed public transportation in Los Angeles.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aafcac on Thursday August 11 2022, @07:56PM (1 child)
It'll still happen, but delivery vehicles alone is a pretty massive improvement. They don't get to benefit as much from things like bus only lanes as the buses do, and as people switch from having their own cars/taxis to get their stuff, more emissions are going to be coming from delivery vehicles.
It's also worth nothing, that hybrid and trolley buses are already a thing that transit agencies can choose, at least for the shorter runs that electric buses would start out running. It's not as large of a jump in terms of emissions from there to fully electric buses as it would be for those delivery vehicles. Having worked for a delivery company a few years ago, the air got outright disgusting when they'd be powered on right before leaving the depot. Probably worse than with the buses due to the higher concentration of vehicles and smaller engines.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday August 12 2022, @01:28PM
I assume "worth nothing" was supposed to be "worth noting"?
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Thursday August 11 2022, @09:05PM
The SPAC and IPO EV space is littered with failed or failing companies, and that's not counting the outright fraud. I hope this one survives.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by richtopia on Friday August 12 2022, @12:08AM
I can't blame Arrival for focusing on one product; I think everyone here has seen a startup that advertises too many products and gets bogged down with crazy aspirations.
Regarding the comment on electric buses: there is too much competition and the demand doesn't exist. I don't know the number of buses in the USA, but anyone who has traveled from the USA to almost any foreign major city can infer there just aren't as many. Meanwhile, the PRC is dominating the electric bus market approaching 100% of the world's electric buses. I'm skeptical that a startup focusing on the USA could compete with foreign imports even with the logistical and tax hurdles of a bus coming from China.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_bus [wikipedia.org]