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Tusimple told federal authorities about the crash among the autonomous cars he was overseeing, and temporarily halted the fleet. But he neglected to inform his partner, Navistar. Meanwhile, event rival Torque Robotics has made some changes to its self-driving truck process.
I wanted to say something…
An autonomous truck piloted by TuSimple in Arizona in April got a lot of praise for one thing. No one was hurt, but the unintended sharp left turn into a lane of Interstate 10 traffic and into a concrete barrier put a big dent in the early readiness of autonomous trucks.
What started as a short but intriguing video clip on YouTube’s Asia My Show has spread to analyst questions and a full treatment in The Wall Street Journal and its podcasts.
Backed by questions from analysts on the company’s second-quarter earnings call, TuSimple CEO Xiaodi Hou took responsibility for the problem. They promised that changes would be made to prevent this from happening again.
But Hu said to manufacturing partner Navistar Inc. Telling about the incident seems like a no-brainer – at least not right away. A subsidiary of Traton Group, which has fitted the purpose-built car with TuSimple software in 2025, the public seemed to be aware of the danger by the time it arrived.
“We weren’t entirely happy with the clarity of this situation,” Michael Grahe, Navistar’s vice president of operations, told me this week. “Such a part of the advancement of technology means that sometimes things go wrong. Next time, we’ll let you know ahead of time. We have procedures in place to make sure.” [a communication gap] It won’t happen again. “
Learning from other self-management mistakes
TuSimple rival Torque Robotics had its own take on April’s disaster: What can we learn from this?
“When we find out there’s an incident from another organization, we try to learn as much as we can,” Tork CEO Michael Fleming told me. “In some cases, we will shut down our flight services if any company suffers an accident or disaster. We pause and reflect. We try to understand root cause analysis. Why did this happen? “
Policies, procedures, certification requirements will all be examined.
“We spent a lot of time on the Uber incident and death,” Fleming said in March 2018. “We went through that NTSB. [National Transportation Safety Board] report and asked ourselves some tough questions. What are we missing?
What happened at TuSimple is “a learning opportunity for everyone. [Torc] organization,” Fleming said. To make sure the industry moves forward, we need to pause, reflect, understand root cause analysis, and make sure we’ve raised that level in the way we all test.
Torque has taken action from the TuSimple case, but Fleming said they don’t include grounding of Torque’s Level 4 autonomous trucks. What Tork did was to challenge the “so far in the weeds” explanation of the faithful.
“We made changes based on that incident and will likely make changes based on future incidents,” Fleming said. We must learn from our mistakes and the mistakes of others to move the ball forward.
In his own case
Fleming was the face of Torque before Daimler Trucks acquired a majority of the company in March 2019. Fleming, 43, is stepping down after 17 years as CEO. October 1st. Peter Wagenschmidt succeeds Daimler Autonomy.
The question had to be asked: did he jump or was he pushed?
“It was my idea,” Fleming told me Thursday after an all-hands meeting where he shared the plans with employees. “When we joined the Daimler car family, we had a three-year plan, and it had a series of goals. I also outlined Michael Fleming’s series of goals at the same time.
There is never such a perfect time for a CEO transition. But I’ve done a lot of research and I’ve come to the conclusion that Torq is in amazing shape right now.
Leaving the CEO position doesn’t mean Fleming is out the door. More like the opposite.
“I wear many different hats at Torque: CEO, shareholder, board member and founder.I always wear the founder’s hat. I’m taking a hat off and passing it on to someone else.”
Fleming has non-competitive clauses, but to listen to him, they really don’t matter.
“I have no desire to start something new and I have no desire to join another company. I have a storybook career. I’m very lucky. Seventeen years. It’s amazing the different levels I’ve had the opportunity to go through. I love Torque.”
Less than zero?
“Remember that I am your hero, yes I would wear your heart as a symbol. I couldn’t save you from the dark truth. I know I’ll always be below zero.” – The weekend
The flower is truly off the rose for special purpose acquisition companies. The number of new SPAC listings in July was, wait for it, zero, according to SPACinsider.
Stricter Securities and Exchange Commission regulations and general awareness that the accelerated path to bringing a company public in the market may not be worth playing every week, especially in transportation SPACs.
Hyzon Motors is the latest to reveal that it is in trouble. Before that, Romeo Power effectively gave up its independence and, ironically, was acquired by Nicola Corporation, itself a former SPAC that seems to have survived its own troubles.
Funds are running tight as the initial payments from their merger run out. Young companies are reaching for lifelines to stay afloat as they face the glare of the hot lights of Wall Street’s quarterly push to deliver. Lordstown Motors, for example, sold itself to Taiwanese chipmaker and electric vehicle wannabe Foxconn.
Embark Trucks, which has “strong buy” recommendations from three of the four analysts that follow the independent software developer, recently completed a 1-for-20 reverse stock split, exchanging one new common share for 20 pre-dividend shares. That boosted the stock price, which had fallen into the low single digits. Shares of Embark traded at $11.62 on Friday.
Nicola beat around the bush to get proxies, allowing the authorized shares to rise from 600 million to 800 million. Lion Electric, Xos Cars and others have “on market” arrangements to sell additional shares to raise funds.
In the news…
Norwegian Hydrogen Company In the ASAA former partner that supplies hydrogen electrolyzers NicolaHe said Wednesday that he sold 1.1 million shares in the electric-truck company for $7.5 million. “The sale does not in any way affect my good working relationship with Nicola,” Neal said, according to Dow Jones Newswires.
Enel X Road North America Purchased over 250 direct fast chargers from Australia. Tritium For deployment across the US, it combines Tritium’s direct-current fast charging technology with Enel X Way’s smart EV charging platform.
The Chargers are expected to qualify for a tax credit of 30%, or up to $100,000, for each purchase under the inflation-reduction law signed by President Biden. Tritium will build the chargers in a new plant in Tennessee starting this fall. The Chargers must meet the Federal Highway Administration’s Buy American compliance standards by the first quarter of 2023.
Briefly stated…
Pacar Inc. He buys Cummins X15N 15-liter natural gas engines b Kenworth And Peterbilt When trucks are available in 2024. … Hos has formed a strategic partnership with Country LeaseAmong the leading full-service truck rental companies in North America with over 900 locations and 165,000 vehicles.
That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading. Click here to receive the Freight Technique by email on Fridays.
Alan
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