Latest news with #Also
TechCrunch
3 days ago
- Automotive
- TechCrunch
Jony Ive's LoveFrom helped design Rivian's first electric bike
Lovefrom, the creative firm founded by former Apple chief designer Jony Ive, played a role in the development of Rivian's first electric bike, according to multiple sources who spoke to TechCrunch. For about 18 months, a handful of LoveFrom staff worked alongside Rivian's design team and engineers within a skunkworks program led by Specialized's former chief product and technology officer Chris Yu. LoveFrom's work on the micromobility project ended in fall 2024, according to the sources. LoveFrom and Rivian declined to comment. Rivian's skunkworks program, which eventually grew to a team of about 70 people hailing from Apple, Google, Specialized, Tesla, REI Co-Op, spun out earlier this year with a new name and $105 million in funding from Eclipse Ventures. The micromobility startup, called Also, has yet to show off its first vehicle designs. In interviews with TechCrunch, Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe (who is on Also's board) and Yu were cagey about what the new company's first vehicle would look like. 'There's a seat, and there's two wheels, there's a screen, and there's a few computers and a battery,' Scaringe said in March. He has also said it will be 'bike-like,' a description confirmed by sources. But both Scaringe and Yu spoke of a much bigger vision for Also, one where it could theoretically tackle almost any imaginable micromobility form factor. The new company is supposed to reveal its first designs at an event later this year. An Also spokesperson declined to comment about its bike or any connection to LoveFrom. Techcrunch event Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Boston, MA | REGISTER NOW When the electric 'bike' is revealed, it's possible that Ive's fingerprints will be all over it. Ive is best-known for being the design force behind the iPhone and myriad other Apple products, and most recently, his work with Sam Altman and OpenAI. But his collaboration with Rivian is not his first foray into the transportation industry. The parent company of Ferrari announced in 2021 that Ive's firm would help develop the Italian supercar manufacturer's next-generation vehicles. Ive was also involved with Apple's secretive car project. He was reportedly one of the main proponents for centering Apple's long-running car project around autonomy, whereas other people inside the company pushed for a more traditional electric car. Apple abandoned that project early last year. Sources told TechCrunch that Ive's LoveFrom has acted as a consultant for Rivian in the past, including on the company's redesigned infotainment system and retail, among other areas, according to two former employees with knowledge of the relationship. But its involvement in what would become Also was a more structured and dedicated effort, another source familiar with the relationship said. The skunkworks program began taking shape in early 2022 with a directive to explore whether Rivian's EV technology could be condensed down into something smaller and more affordable than its electric vans, trucks, and SUVs. Initially, the small team worked with Rivian designers to develop a product that could scale to different types of vehicles. A key design challenge was how to make the bike-like product modular while still maintaining the elevated aesthetics Rivian has become known for. By the time LoveFrom got involved in the project in early 2023, a lot of work had been completed, according to sources who said they helped refine the prototypes. The relationship was described as a 'pretty tight' collaboration between the skunkworks team, LoveFrom's staff, and the industrial designers based out of Rivian's headquarters in Irvine. This group looked at everything including the user interface and UX for the bike. The industrial design team at LoveFrom, which has a lot of experience with thoughtful and clever packaging, was particularly involved, according to one source, who noted the team brought an interdisciplinary and international perspective to the project.
Yahoo
06-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
For 60 years Kansas town has honored presidential runners-up, like Kamala Harris
In the heat of social media battles, Donald Trump fans use two words to smack down Kamala Harris supporters and critics of his thus-far tumultuous presidency: You lost! 'Tis true. But in one hamlet of about 2,800 residents in the northwest corner of the Sunflower State, once little more than a stop on a stagecoach route, there is no shame in running for president and losing. In Norton, Kansas, presidential runners-up are celebrated. For 60 years, the town has invited tourists to visit a museum on the second floor of The First State Bank downtown. Bank customers can see it from the lobby. It is called the 'They Also Ran Gallery,' a collection of black-and-white pictures and brief biographies of men and women who lost their bids to become U.S. president. A picture of Thomas Jefferson, the loser of the 1796 presidential race, hangs there. Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Al Gore, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton are there, too. So is Trump, who lost his bid at reelection to Joe Biden in 2020. Once, a National Portrait Gallery spokeswoman pooh-poohed the idea of a losers museum as 'a bad idea if you are a losing candidate.' Created in the 1960s by a civic-minded businessman to lure visitors to town, the quirky gallery was never meant as a political statement, even in an undeniably red state. With politics as ugly and divisive as they are today, holding that bipartisan line is challenging the gallery's sole keeper who hasn't yet written the brief biographies for Harris or Trump, whose photo has been displayed since 2021. The museum's benign guiding principle since day one has been this: Let's not forget the also-rans. Lee Ann Shearer, the bank employee who has curated the gallery for nearly two decades, wondered if everyone had forgotten about the gallery itself when no media called her after Inauguration Day in January. 'I haven't tooted our horn or anything, we're just kind of one of those not-so-exciting museums unless you're really into politics,' Shearer told The Star this week. Over the years, the gallery has attracted interest and visitors from across the country, especially in and around presidential election years. The latest induction of Harris, though, came and went with none of the usual fanfare. Typically on Inauguration Day, Shearer sets up a TV, chairs and snacks in the gallery for visitors. Then about a half hour before the president takes the oath of office in D.C., she unveils the portrait of the person they vanquished. That didn't happen this year. 'We've had a few parties, a few inaugural parties and such,' she said. 'But we didn't in the COVID year and we didn't this year because of Inauguration Day landing on a Monday that we were closed, Martin Luther King Day. We weren't open, so we didn't have much excitement around it.' Shearer began as a bookkeeper at the bank in 1998 and now works as a customer service representative. She jokes that she's a 'busy bee' around Norton, working with the Chamber of Commerce and helping to promote local tourism. Norton is one of the state's many pass-through communities sustained by agriculture, a town people don't stumble upon because it sits far off the well-traveled paths of Interstate 80 to the north and Interstate 70 to the south. Both Kansas City and Denver are more than a four-hour drive away. 'It's not mountainous, it's not forest. It's just the plains, we're only plains, I suppose,' said Shearer. Back in the mid-60s when William Walter Rouse, a noted history buff and former president of the First State Bank, opened the gallery, the town had maybe 75 businesses downtown, she said. Today, there's just a handful. Rouse and fellow community leaders hatched a plan to recreate a stagecoach station that had served the town in the late 1800s when the area was a stop on the line running between Leavenworth, Kansas and Pike's Peak in Colorado. They built a replica of the station and named a street after Horace Greeley, the famous publisher of the New York Tribune who, according to town lore, stayed overnight at the station in 1859. Stagecoach Station 15 still stands, one of the town's other attractions that goes 'hand-in-hand' with the gallery, Shearer said. Later, someone gifted Rouse a book called 'They Also Ran,' by Irving Stone, which told of 19 men who lost when they ran for president. Greeley was one of them, losing in a landslide to Ulysses S. Grant in 1872. A big fan of Greeley, Rouse began collecting black-and-white copies of portraits and photos of presidential also-rans from the Library of Congress to showcase. 'His friends called him a nut and said, 'What are you doing? Who is going to stop and see this?'' Shearer said. When the bank in 1965 moved into its current location, a former theater, Rouse displayed the photos in the building's former mezzanine. They're all the same size, 16-inches-by-20-inches, and all black-and-white for that archival look. In the beginning Rouse displayed independent and third-party candidates, but when space got tight only runners-up earned a spot. That's why the gallery features 63 photos, even though Trump is currently president No. 47. Democrat Adlai Stevenson is there. He lost to Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952, and has been described as 'the most beautiful loser' in presidential history. 'It is traditionally American to fight hard before an election. It is equally traditional to close ranks as soon as the people have spoken,' Stevenson said in his concession speech. 'That which unites us as American citizens is far greater than that which divides us as political parties. I urge you all to give to General Eisenhower the support he will need to carry out the great task that lie before him. I pledge him mine. We vote as many. But we pray as one.' John Kerry, too, spoke of national unity and the values Americans hold in common when he conceded to George W. Bush in 2004. Kerry rejected the term 'loser.' 'In an American election, there are no losers,' Kerry said. 'Because whether or not our candidates are successful, the next morning, we all wake up as Americans. And that is the greatest privilege and the most remarkable good fortune that can come to us on earth.' The gallery wound up in Shearer's care 'mainly because I found it so interesting why people would come all the way out to Norton to a town of 2,800 people to look at a place that collects all the first runner-ups,' she said. 'I used my creative juices that I don't have anywhere else in my job to try to come up with a way to make it interesting and make sure our local tourism group promotes it, when people do come in, as one of the highlights of Norton.' Visitors are hit-and-miss, maybe 200 in an election year. Not many have stopped in to see Harris' picture, said Shearer, who admits the museum 'is kinda hard to find' but hopes new signage coming helps. 'I haven't given a lot of tours in the last couple of weeks. They come in very randomly,' she said. 'Sometimes I might have two in a day, sometimes might not have one for two weeks.' No losing candidate has ever visited. Shearer just missed a chance to have former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole stop by years ago. The Russell, Kansas native, who died in 2021, is featured in the gallery because he lost his presidential bid to Bill Clinton in 1996. The last two pictures, Trump and Harris, are displayed without biographies, though each has a brief one on the gallery's website, Shearer can't find the right words to write. She's frozen in her desire to 'make everybody feel comfortable,' a tough task given that one candidate is associated with the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. 'I haven't got a biography for Trump yet and I haven't got a biography for Kamala yet because it's an ongoing story,' she said. 'It's not complete. Some parts of it are historic but there's so much more to what I can put in three paragraphs in the frame. 'And it's kind of bugging me that since everything is current I can't put everything encapsulated into a paragraph because it's hard at this moment in time to know what is true and what is not true. 'We definitely don't want to make it feel any one way versus another way politically. I am by no means putting anything that's going to offend anyone in any story. It's very hard and that's probably why I've been unable to finish.' She's already had a taste of what landmines could lie ahead. 'There's only been one time that anybody has been a little bit aggressive about it and it was a lady yelling downstairs at the tellers,' she said. The woman wanted Trump's biography, when it appears, to proclaim that he incited violence on Jan. 6, one of the things Shearer is uneasy to write because she personally doesn't know what's true and what's not. 'It made us feel bad because we've never really had anyone put up any fire ...' she said. 'I make sure (visitors) know that this is to honor these people because it's the highest pinnacle of almost-success in their lives.' She is so resolutely loyal to the museum's 60-year-old tradition that it bothers her when headlines refer to the gallery's honorees as 'losers.' Oh how she doesn't like that word. 'It's ornery and it's hurtful,' she said. 'We have been referred to as, I probably shouldn't say it, but (media) have said ... hail to the losers. But I try to call them 'challengers' and 'candidates.' 'I try to keep it pretty positive. But there's people poking at everything in the world, I guess.'
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Rivian's New Startup, "Also", Targets Lightweight EVs and Micromobility
Electric micromobility—the area of transportation concerning things like e-bikes and e-scooters from brands like Lime and Bird—is still in its infancy. Up until now, the industry has been plagued by fads (Segway, anyone?), financial pitfalls, and reliability concerns around theft and overall organization. Apparently, Rivian thinks it can change that and has spun out its self-incubated "Also" startup, which will produce light electric vehicles (LEVs) and other personal transportation. View the 3 images of this gallery on the original article Formerly a small team working inside of Rivian, the new micromobility business now stands technically alone. Also was started around three and a half years ago as a bit of an exploratory journey to see if Rivian could leverage its existing strengths to develop affordable (and profitable) personal transportation. As it turns out, Rivian concluded that it can provide a "greatly enhanced product relative to currently available offerings," leading to the decision for Rivian to have Also, Inc. stand alone. While Rivian maintains a "substantial minority ownership stake," venture capital fund Eclipse Ventures has ponied up an additional $105 million. Also's site claims the new company's flagship product will arrive in the first half of next year, but doesn't mention any other markets by name except the US and Europe. What that "flagship" looks like, exactly, is anyone's guess. Also says that it's "building an exciting range of electric vehicles that are efficient, sustainable, and delightful to use." Another key detail to note is that they're using a completely proprietary platform, encompassing everything from software to motors. There's little doubt Also's leaned heavily on its Rivian origin for a lot of this, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. In an interview with InsideEVs, Chris Yu, Also's president, hints that the brand will rely on a "skateboard" approach and will feature two-, three-, and four-wheel machinations. Everything will be made in-house, just like with Rivian's vehicles. You won't see any cars wearing an Also badge—the brand stops "just south of a homologated car," says Yu—because that would really be missing the point. Also, which Yu refers to as a former "skunkworks program," is another resource in Rivian's tool belt that will help it continue to survive and thrive. When you add this to Rivian's excellent roadmap (the R2 and R3 electric SUVs), its very public Amazon partnership, and joint ventures with Mercedes-Benz to power European market vans, those whispers questioning the brand's longevity might as well be the ravings of a lunatic. Electrification in micromobility has long legs and is only in the beginning stages of relevancy. Heck, the term "micromobility" itself has only been around for ten years or so. As cities get denser, cars get pricier, and inflation marches on, more and more people will start considering alternatives to vehicle ownership. Rivian, and by extension, Also, have the experience and messaging down; all they need now is a product that actually excites people.
Forbes
31-03-2025
- Automotive
- Forbes
Rivian's Micromobility Incubator ‘Also' Gets Surprise Debut
Recently, when Rivian electric car company founder RJ Scaringe introduced the upcoming second generation of his two primary models - the R2S SUV andR2T pickup truck - he paid fine homage to Apple Computer founder Steve Jobs' iconic 'one more thing' end-of-presentation surprise strategy by introducing not one unexpected vehicle - the R3 - but a second variant, the R3x, which has the automotive segment excited even though the new models are still a year or so from production. Watch the wink to Jobs at the 27:45 mark: Now, Scaringe and Rivian has announced a micromobility development company called Also, Inc. The forthcoming products from Also will skew more towards personal use, although some micromobility products - especially e-bikes - are quickly becoming staples of the delivery industry with workers contracting with companies like Uber Eats, Doordash and others. Rivian has also produced tens of thousands of distinctive electric delivery vans (EDVs) for and recently began offering the vans for public sale. 'Also will focus on small, lightweight vehicles that are designed to meet the global mobility transportation challenges of today and tomorrow,' Rivian said in a press release, with Scaringe adding 'for the world to fully transition to electrified transportation, a range of vehicle types and form factors will be needed.' Also will be its own company, but will work closely with Rivian, much like Harley-Davidson and its e-moto spinoff LiveWire and Royal Enfield with its new electric motorcycle company Flying Flea (below). Chris Yu, Rivian's VP of future programs, will be its president, according to Rivian's press release. Additional investment totaling over $100 million will come from investment company Eclipse, which is currently working with dozens of small tech startups. Other partners, so far unnamed, are reportedly involved. No specific products have been announced as of yet, but Scaringe has a history of paying attention to the mobility market, even while developing his full-size vehicles. According to tech tracking site TechCrunch, Scaringe will show an initial vehicle later this year, and strongly hinted it will be an affordable e-bike. TechCrunch said Scaringe and Rivian growth director and Eclipse partner Jiten Behl started talking about developing micromobility products just ahead of the pandemic. During the covid years, TechCrunch said Christ Yu from bicycle and e-bike maker Specialized joined the effort. Bloomberg posted in early 2023 that Rivian was working on an e-bike but details were scant. Scaringe founded Rivian in 2009, one year after Tesla began production of its first model, the Lotus-derived Roadster. Rivian went public in late 2021 with a stock price near $130 per share, giving the company a massive market cap before they had produced many commercial vehicles. The first Rivian R1T electric pickup for commercial sale rolled off the assembly line in September of that year. The stock fell as the pandemic wore on and excitement over EVs waned. Today, Rivian shares remain in the teens and production continues for the company's latest generation of R1S and R1T vehicles as well as the distinctive electric delivery vans. Rivian's market cap has hovered around $10 to $20 billion since 2022, and the company turned its first official profit - $170 million - in the last quarter of 2024 after years of heavy losses as production scaled up. With many prospective EV buyers souring on Tesla vehicles due to CEO Elon Musk's political involvement, Rivian's profile has risen as of late. With President Trump's fairly antagonistic relationship with (most) electric vehicles and a possible end of tax incentives of EV buyers, the move to release Also into the wild might be timely if the vehicles are manufactured in the U.S. and not affected by tariffs. The vast majority of e-bikes, electric scooters and other micromobility products are manufactured in China, putting them at risk of price increases due to tariffs. Scaringe told TechCrunch he thinks many e-bikes are overpriced; a competitive domestic product with no tariff charges could have legs (or wheels) if production can scale quickly and import tariffs remain in place. Thank you for reading. Subscribing to allows you to leave comments and support contributors like myself. Subscribe to my page and get notifications when new stories are posted. You can also follow me on LinkedIn.
Yahoo
29-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trending tickers: latest investor updates on Lululemon, Rivian, Alibaba, Ubisoft and WH Smith
Shares in the yoga pants maker plunged by over 10% in pre-market trading as it said it expects sales growth to slow this year, hurt by cautious consumers who are limiting their spending amid an uncertain macroeconomic environment. Lululemon (LULU) posted a 10% year-on-year rise in revenue, reaching $10.6bn (£ buoyed by the opening of new stores and growth at existing locations. Annual net income also increased, growing 17% to $1.8bn. However, investors were not happy with the outlook, pushing the stock down 11% to $304.78 in pre-market trading. Although the company had previously updated its guidance for the holiday quarter in January, attention shifted to management's forecasts for the upcoming fiscal year, which were less optimistic than anticipated. For the year ending in January 2025, Lululemon (LULU) projected net revenue to range between $11.15bn and $11.3bn, representing a modest 5% to 7% increase. Analysts had anticipated a revenue growth of 7%, with expectations pointing to a total of $11.3bn. Read more: FTSE 100 LIVE: London opens cautiously as Trump car tariffs throw spanner in the works of growth Additionally, the company's earnings per share guidance of $14.95 to $15.15 fell short of Wall Street's estimate of $15.37. Lululemon's (LULU) forecast for the first quarter was also disappointing, with expected revenue ranging from $2.335bn to $2.355bn and earnings per share between $2.53 and $2.58. Analysts had predicted $2.39bn in revenue and $2.72 in earnings per share. 'We started this year with several compelling new product launches, but we also believe the dynamic macro environment has contributed to a more cautious consumer,' Calvin McDonald, chief executive, told analysts. Shares of Rivian (RIVN), the electric vehicle maker, fell into correction territory in pre-market trading following a 7.6% surge on Thursday, amid growing investor optimism about its micromobility business expansion. In a statement, Rivian (RIVN) revealed that it had secured $105m in investment from Eclipse Ventures to support its newly spun-out business, Also Inc., which will focus on developing small, lightweight electric vehicles. Rivian's (RIVN) founder and CEO, RJ Scaringe, expressed enthusiasm for the venture, saying: 'For the world to fully transition to electrified transportation, a range of vehicle types and form factors will be needed. I am extremely excited about the innovations developed by the Also team that will underpin a range of highly compelling micromobility products that will help define new categories.' Scaringe added that Also will display its first vehicle designs at an event in 2025. In addition to this new business venture, Rivian (RIVN) underscored its ongoing progress toward launching the R2, a five-seater SUV designed for adventure. The company expects to begin customer deliveries of the R2 in the first half of 2026 as part of its broader expansion strategy. Shares of Alibaba (BABA) slipped 1% in pre-market trading, even as its cloud computing arm unveiled a new AI model designed for multimodal applications. The Qwen2.5-Omni-7B model is a unified system that can process text, images, audio, and video inputs, generating real-time text and speech outputs. This release follows the company's earlier update of the Qwen 2.5 model in January. With 7 billion parameters, the compact Qwen2.5-Omni-7B offers strong performance and is open-sourced, available on platforms like Hugging Face and GitHub. Alibaba (BABA) highlighted the model's optimisation for edge devices such as smartphones and laptops, positioning it as a tool for cost-effective AI agents, including potential applications for the visually impaired through real-time audio guidance. Read more: UK economy records modest growth in final quarter of 2024 The launch comes amid growing competition from Chinese peers such as Baidu (BIDU) and Tencent (TCEHY), which are also expanding their AI capabilities following the introduction of DeepSeek's R1 model last year. Shares in the French video maker rose more than 10% in Paris after it announced plans to set up a subsidiary in which Tencent (TCEHY) will invest €1.16bn (£967m) Ubisoft ( the creator of the Assassin's Creed series, announced on Thursday that the subsidiary would be valued at approximately €4bn (£3.3bn) and would bring together its flagship brands, including Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six. The new entity will focus on developing these three major franchises and aims to bolster Ubisoft's ( financial standing. CEO Yves Guillemot said that the subsidiary would play a crucial role in strengthening the company's balance sheet. Morningstar said in a note: "Ubisoft gains financial flexibility with the cash infusion, which equates to about two thirds of the firm's pre-announcement market cap." Shares of WH Smith (SMWH.L) rose in early European trading following the announcement that the retailer had sold 480 of its stores to investment company Modella Capital, the owner of Hobbycraft, for £76m. As part of the deal, the high street business, which employs 5,000 staff, will be rebranded as TGJones, while WH Smith (SMWH.L) will retain its brand for its travel-focused stores. WH Smith will also keep its nearly 1,300 travel stores and its online business. The company also revealed that it is exploring "strategic options," including a potential sale of its digital greetings card business, Funky Pigeon. While WH Smith (SMWH.L) expects to realize £52m in cash proceeds from the sale, it will net only £25m after transaction and separation costs. Carl Cowling, the group chief executive at WH Smith (SMWH.L), said: 'As we continue to deliver on our strategic ambition to become the leading global travel retailer, this is a pivotal moment for WH Smith as we become a business exclusively focused on travel. 'As our travel business has grown, our UK high street business has become a much smaller part of the WH Smith Group (SMWH.L). High street is a good business; it is profitable and cash generative with an experienced and high-performing management team. 'However, given our rapid international growth, now is the right time for a new owner to take the high street business forward.'
