TRANSPORTATION AND LOGISTICS BRIEFING: GM acquires Strobe for self-driving car push - DHL and Nvidia to test self-driving delivery trucks - Flexport expands into trade financing
Welcome to Transportation & Logistics Briefing, a new M-W-F morning email providing the latest news, data, and insight on how digital technology is disrupting transportation and delivery, produced by BI Intelligence.
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GM BUYS LIDAR MANUFACTURER TO ACCELERATE SELF-DRIVING PUSH: GM announced it will purchase Los Angeles-based LiDAR sensor manufacturer Strobe for an undisclosed amount. LiDAR is an image-sensing technology that uses lasers and infrared cameras to help create a virtual map of all the objects around a self-driving car, including pedestrians and street signs. The automaker expects the deal to close sometime before the end of the calendar year.
GM will fold Strobe into its Cruise Automation subsidiary that houses all of its self-driving technology efforts. Self-driving cars are typically outfitted with multiple LiDAR sensors placed around the vehicle, but three-year-old Strobe has patents for a LiDAR sensor stack that only requires a single chipset that fits in the palm of a hand, which is what Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt said was so attractive about the company. About half of Strobe's employees will stay on and work with with Cruise engineers to integrate this chipset into the rest of the self-driving systems, including the AI, software, and cameras, that the business unit is developing.
The deal will allow GM to manufacture very inexpensive LiDAR in-house, which is a huge boon to its ability to mass produce self-driving cars. Cruise had previously worked on a LiDAR sensor stack in-house, but the company couldn't find a way to mass produce it inexpensively. Manufacturing Strobe's LiDAR chipset in-house will allow Cruise to cut its LiDAR costs by 99%, Vogt argued on a conference call with reporters and analysts. The vast majority of LiDAR sensor stacks on the market from companies like Velodyne and Quanergy cost tens of thousands of dollars, making it ill-suited for self-driving cars designed to be produced en masse. That's why Tesla no longer uses LiDAR in its semi-autonomous Autopilot system at all, and Waymo built its own LiDAR sensor stack earlier this year to lessen its reliance on Velodyne. GM, Tesla, and Waymo all intend to put self-driving vehicles on the market before 2020, earlier than most other auto players, and have either abandoned LiDAR or started producing the technology in-house.
This will likely accelerate GM's efforts to produce self-driving cars en masse. The automaker has previously laid out plans to produce autonomous vehicles for commercial purposes, including ride-hailing and delivery fleets. A recent Deutsche Bank report predicted that GM will do so in only a few quarters. Lowering its production costs - potentially by tens of thousands of dollars per vehicle - could allow GM to scale up these commercial fleets of self-driving cars more quickly than potential competitors like Ford and Daimler.
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DEUTSCHE POST DHL AND NVIDIA TO START TESTING AUTONOMOUS DELIVERY TRUCKS: Deutsche Post DHL, the world's largest logistics provider, is partnering with chipmaker Nvidia to test a fleet of self-driving delivery trucks in the next year, Fortune reports.
The two companies will outfit some of DHL's StreetScooter electric delivery trucks with Nvidia's Drive PX computing system for self-driving cars. The trucks will feature a package of camera, radar, and LiDAR sensors from auto supplier ZF that will feed data about the vehicle's surroundings to the PX computing platform for analysis. Nvidia is a leading provider of computing technology for self-driving cars because its Graphic Processing Units (GPUs) can quickly process large volumes of visual data. DHL and Nvidia did not provide details about how many trucks will be involved in the tests, when exactly they will begin, or where they will take place.
The self-driving technology will not replace delivery truck drivers - instead, the technology is meant to enhance their productivity, a Nvidia executive told Fortune. For example, a delivery courier could park their truck at an apartment complex, deliver mail and packages to different addresses there, and then summon the truck to pick them up once finished. That would allow the courier to speed up delivery runs, and ultimately deliver more packages more quickly. Additionally, self-driving trucks could potentially deliver packages 24 hours per day, enabling later cut-off times for same-day delivery, which is an increasingly popular perk for online shoppers. One quarter of US shoppers surveyed earlier this year by research firm L2 said they would abandon an online shopping cart if same-day delivery wasn't offered. McKinsey forecasted earlier this year that same-day delivery would grow to account for $200 billion in online sales - about 25% of the US e-commerce market - by 2025. This growth has pushed logistics firms, including DHL competitor FedEx, to expand their same-day delivery capabilities. Altogether, DHL has more 3,400 StreetScooter delivery trucks, and, if the tests prove successful, will likely start rolling out Nvidia's and ZF's self-driving systems to more of those vehicles.
FLEXPORT'S MOVE INTO TRADE FINANCING: Freight forwarding startup Flexport confirmed a recently reported $110 million round of financing, and said that it now plans to move into offering trade finance to its freight customers, according to Tech Crunch. Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, one of the new investors in the financing round, will team up with the startup to provide trade financing on shipments arranged through Flexport.
Flexport will be able to leverage all the data that it collects on companies' shipments in order to provide them with financing. Flexport's value proposition is built on digitizing the middle man work of booking transportation for goods across land, sea, and air that freight forwarders have long performed manually with paperwork and spreadsheets. Flexport collects and analyzes all of the information involved in arranging shipments - including their size, route, shipping rates, and customs information - to find ways to ship goods faster and cheaper. The startup now intends to analyze that same data to determine credit-worthiness for trade financing that will be funded by Wells Fargo, and will take a cut of revenue from the loans.
Flexport said that it could offer financing much more quickly than a traditional financial services provider, helping solve a significant pain point for its customers. Companies usually have to pay their manufacturing partners up front to produce inventory that could take months to ship and sell. Obtaining financing for those up-front payments can be a weeks- or months-long process that traditionally involves sending loads of paperwork back and forth between multiple parties. This is why many predict that the $40 billion global trade financing market is ripe for disruption through new technologies - like blockchain - that can store and share the necessary customs and shipping information digitally. With the data it already possesses from its freight forwarding platform, Flexport can shorten the whole process to meet its customers' financing needs more immediately, while turning itself into a one-stop online shop for all of their shipping and supply chain needs.
In other news…
- Waymo, Alphabet's self-driving car company, has started an advertising campaign designed in conjunction with Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the National Safety Counsel, and the Federation for Blind Children to help consumers view autonomous vehicles more favorably, according to Reuters. The campaign, which argues that autonomous vehicles will eliminate alcohol-related driving deaths and give the blind greater mobility, kicked off earlier this week in Arizona, where Waymo is currently operating a pilot self-driving taxi service. A lack of consumer confidence in self-driving cars' safety remains arguably the largest barrier to mass adoption and use of the vehicles.
- Softbank's potential $10 billion investment in Uber has reportedly hit a roadblock because existing shareholders, including Benchmark Capital, are refusing to waive their right of first refusal and approve the investment, according to the Financial Times. The Japanese telco had previously agreed to invest $1 billion directly in the company, and would purchase the remaining $9 billion in shares from existing shareholders and company employees. In addition, the investment would increase the size of the ride-hailing giant's board of directors from 10 to 17 members.
- German industrial giant Siemens has purchased a minority stake in Wi-tronix, an Illinois-based provider of hardware and software for predictive maintenance solutions for locomotives and other trains, according to Progressive Railroading. As part of the investment, Siemens will give Wi-tronix access to its global distribution channels, and the companies will work together to expand the services that Wi-tronix offers. About 12,000 locomotives around the world are currently equipped with the company's offerings, which help predict when maintenance may be required to prevent major malfunctions.