Harri Weber, Author at TechCrunch

I’m trying so hard not to gush over Teenage Engineering’s latest gadget

Harri Weber — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 19:17:58 +0000

Teenage Engineering’s new $300 groovebox has no business being this cute. That’s the whole point. The EP–133 K.O.II (we’ll just call it Knock Out II) is a combination drum machine, synthesizer and sampler. It’s a supersized upgrade to Teenage Engineer’s pint-sized PO-33 K.O, which offers many of the same features for a fraction of the price. […]

Tesla rolls out congestion pricing ahead of holiday travel season

Harri Weber — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 17:59:54 +0000

Congestion fees are now live at some Tesla Supercharger stations in the U.S. Translation: Tesla says it will charge drivers an additional $1 per minute to juice their electric-vehicle batteries beyond 90%, but only when stations are “busy.” The fees come ahead of the busiest travel period in the U.S. — in particular, the days […]

LA Auto Show: The tech, EVs and cars that got our attention

Harri Weber — Fri, 17 Nov 2023 18:04:03 +0000

The 2023 Los Angeles Auto Show is a wrap — for press, anyway. That means it’s time to recap the big launches, strange details, cars on display and peculiar absences we noticed this year. The highlights include the SUV that’ll make or break Lucid, Amazon’s auto fixation, a pickup that calls Tesla’s Cybertruck to mind […]

The all-electric Lucid Gravity SUV finally makes its debut with 440 miles of range

Harri Weber — Thu, 16 Nov 2023 17:09:52 +0000

EV maker Lucid took the long-awaited wraps off the Gravity, an all-electric three-row SUV with a range that could hypothetically leave a Tesla Model X, Fisker Ocean or Rivian R1S stuck behind at a charging station. The importance of the Lucid Gravity — and more aptly the reception it receives — is existential for the […]

Tesla hits reverse on threat to sue Cybertruck resellers

Harri Weber — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 22:17:28 +0000

Tesla seems to be walking back the punitive limits it placed on buyers of its yet-to-be-released Cybertrucks. As recently as yesterday, a Tesla US order agreement page included a threat to sue Cybertruck buyers who resell the vehicle without permission during their first year of ownership. That language is no longer present on the page […]

A software update bricked Rivian infotainment systems

Harri Weber — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 17:24:25 +0000

Welcome to the future, where your car is a computer and a “fat finger” can grind your tunes to a halt. On Monday, Rivian put out — then abruptly canceled — an over-the-air software update that offered bug fixes and improvements to a feature called proximity locking. Instead, the update screwed up some Rivian R1T […]

Exxon wants to drill enough lithium out of Arkansas to power 1M EVs per year

Harri Weber — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 22:30:16 +0000

Fossil fuel giant Exxon is betting its U.S. lithium operation will power a new generation of electric vehicles. The U.S. has hundreds of thousands of tons of “recoverable” lithium, which could go to use in batteries for cars, handhelds and renewable energy storage, a 2021 U.S. Geological Survey said. Yet, the country has just one […]

Rivian eyes software upcharges around AR and autonomy, not heated seats

Harri Weber — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 22:08:31 +0000

We’re well past the revelation that automakers are software companies. But as the industry deepens its software roots, firms are still figuring out which upgrades they’ll charge for — and what folks are willing to pay. Subscription fatigue is real; the last thing anybody needs is another recurring charge. It’s even more frustrating when fees […]

Rivian and Amazon are no longer exclusive

Harri Weber — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 21:24:31 +0000

Rivian vans are no longer an Amazon exclusive. The automaker said on Tuesday that it will now let other companies buy its commercial electric vans, ending an exclusivity deal that Amazon secured when it pumped more than a billion dollars into Rivian in 2019. Both companies’ stock prices rose following the announcement, which they timed […]

May Mobility rides the AV wave while Cruise and Waymo feel the heat

Harri Weber — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 16:06:03 +0000

May Mobility has raised hundreds of millions from some of the biggest names in the auto industry, but if you haven’t heard of the autonomous vehicle startup yet, that’s apparently by design. The Toyota- and BMW-backed company builds autonomous vehicle systems like Cruise and Waymo. Yet, it’s dodging the fire those companies are under by […]

This EV startup was going to revolutionize how cars were made – now, it’s on life support

Harri Weber — Fri, 03 Nov 2023 23:17:10 +0000

Arrival set out eight years ago to make electric vehicle production “radically more efficient.” So far, its plan to forgo the gigafactory for local microfactories has proved anything but. Arrival trumpeted how its automated microfactories would simultaneously churn out electric vans for UPS, cars for Uber drivers and buses for the U.K., Italy and California. […]

Los Angeles demands robotaxi rulemaking powers

Harri Weber — Thu, 02 Nov 2023 18:04:31 +0000

Mayor Karen Bass says Los Angeles — not a state agency — should have the power to decide how robotaxi companies expand in the city. The impact of the mayor's calls may extend well beyond LA.

Ford snaps up EV power startup to boost its charging tech

Harri Weber — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 20:39:45 +0000

Ford is buying and burying Auto Motive Power, or “AMP” for short, to bolster its charging, battery management and power conversion tech. The secretive energy startup once claimed to power “most of the world’s top electric OEMs,” though as far as we can tell it never disclosed its customers publicly. Following the deal, Los Angeles-based […]

Subaru follows Toyota in adopting Tesla’s charging standard

Harri Weber — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 17:44:38 +0000

Subaru wants in on Tesla’s Superchargers. On Wednesday, the Japanese automaker said its electric vehicles will adopt Tesla’s charging port starting in 2025. The move ensures Subaru’s future vehicles will have access to Tesla’s network of “50,000+” chargers. Toyota and Lexus also embraced Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) a couple weeks ago. Since Toyota […]

Two of California’s biggest robotaxi opponents join forces

Harri Weber — Fri, 27 Oct 2023 22:21:12 +0000

Two of the biggest groups to oppose robotaxi expansion in California are now formally working together. Teamsters 856, which is tied to one of the longest-standing labor unions in the U.S., and Rideshare Drivers United (RDU), a group that advocates for app-based workers, said on Friday they’ll work together to push for “responsible guardrails on […]

Robotaxis ‘do not belong in the city of Los Angeles,’ lawmaker says

Harri Weber — Wed, 25 Oct 2023 19:52:50 +0000

Robotaxi oversight is now a priority at Los Angeles City Hall. At a press briefing on Wednesday, Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez told Waymo and Cruise that their robotaxis are not welcome. “The purpose of this press event is to send a very clear message about robot taxis, and say that they do not belong in the […]

Robotaxi pushback grows in Los Angeles as Cruise loses permits

Harri Weber — Tue, 24 Oct 2023 22:00:50 +0000

Less than a month after Waymo’s Los Angeles County expansion, labor organizers and an LA lawmaker are calling for new autonomous-vehicle regulations. On Tuesday, the office of LA Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez said he will introduce a motion “urging officials in the state to address public safety concerns around autonomous vehicles (AVs) and reign in the […]

Smart upcycling machine dissects batteries to save them

Harri Weber — Tue, 24 Oct 2023 00:58:46 +0000

Circu Li-ion co-founder and CEO Antoine Welter says his startup’s upcycling machine can diagnose batteries in seconds. “We know exactly which cell can be reused and which one can’t,” he told TechCrunch on Monday. Circu Li-ion is in the business of saving usable battery cells from shredders. The Luxembourg startup’s machine identifies batteries by their […]

Toyota hops on Tesla’s EV charging standard, leaving Stellantis and VW as holdouts

Harri Weber — Fri, 20 Oct 2023 18:44:05 +0000

Another day, another convert: Toyota and Lexus electric vehicles will adopt Tesla’s chargers starting in 2025, Toyota said this week. The top automaker by global sales, Toyota is the latest to back the North American Charging Standard (NACS), following Hyundai, Kia, Honda, Nissan, Mercedes, GM and Ford, among others. In just about five months, Tesla […]

Trans healthcare startup Plume lays off dozens of workers

Harri Weber — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 23:20:16 +0000

Plume, a startup founded to offer essential online healthcare services to trans people across the U.S., laid off more than two dozen workers in October, several sources close to the company told TechCrunch. Transphobia is rife within the healthcare industry; it’s one reason why transgender patients struggle to access basic care. Legal barriers are also […]