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Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Just 3 days left to save before TechCrunch All Stage 2025 lights up Boston
In only 3 days, founders, investors, and operators will flood into the SoWa Power Station in Boston for TechCrunch All Stage 2025 — and if you haven't grabbed your pass yet, this is your final window to lock in the lowest prices available and save up to $475. Whether you're a first-time founder or a scaling-stage exec, TC All Stage delivers the real-world strategies and connections that move the needle. It's not theory — it's the stuff that drives traction. This single-day founder summit is built for momentum. You'll leave with tools, frameworks, and connections that push your startup forward: Check out a few of the startup leaders, investors, and builders who will take the mic July 15: Right now, Founder Passes are just $100 and Investor Passes are $200 — the lowest prices you'll see. They won't last. Book your ticket today and join the room where high-growth ideas and real traction collide. — TC All Stage happens July 15 in Boston. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Are Rivian's Job Cuts a Red Flag?
Rivian recently made job cuts to improve operational efficiency. The EV maker needs its R2 model to be a success and revive its sales. The R2 will also be Rivian's ticket overseas, where it's planning a big push. 10 stocks we like better than Rivian Automotive › Oftentimes, when a young company such as Rivian Automotive (NASDAQ: RIVN) slashes jobs, it's not a good thing. That makes it understandable for some investors to glance at headlines and assume Rivian is in worse shape than we all thought. But let's slow down, bring in some of the numbers, and explain what's going on. Investors will feel much better in the end. A couple of weeks ago, Rivian laid off around 140 employees, or about 1% of its total workforce, according to TechCrunch. "We have made the difficult decision to reduce a small number of our salaried manufacturing employees as part of an ongoing effort to improve operational efficiency for R2," a spokesperson wrote to TechCrunch. Right off the bat, as awful as it is for any job cuts, the small number is better for investors -- the automaker started the year with a little over 14,800 workers in North America and Europe. Investors can only hope that the efficiencies created are real and tangible because the company is heavily relying on its R2 to boost sales and help push the company toward profitability. Rivian could use a boost in sales, as you can see in the graphic below. Also note the progress in gross profits despite the stagnating sales, which is due to its moves to cut costs and create efficiencies. Not on the graphic are Rivian's second-quarter delivery results, which declined 23% compared to the prior year. Rivian still confirmed its 2025 delivery guidance for between 40,000 and 46,000 vehicles. The concern for investors is that Rivian is relying on a strong second half to hit its delivery mark, and that means more risk for investors. Rivian delivered 19,301 vehicles in the first half of 2025, down 30% compared to the prior year, leaving it needing roughly 24,000 cars in the second half of 2025. In other words, Rivian needs to boost its deliveries by 23% in the second half to meet the midpoint of its guidance. For investors, the R2 can't get here soon enough. With zero vehicle launches due before that point, 2025 sales are in a bit of limbo. It doesn't help that Rivian's sales stall comes at a time when the current government administration is making it clear it wants to push back on electric vehicle (EV) incentives. The R2 could be huge for Rivian, and if we're honest, it really needs to be. If the R2 were to flop, it would bring up serious concerns about the company's ability to reach profitability anytime soon, if not worse. On the flip side, there are reasons to be optimistic about the R2's upcoming impact on Rivian. You see, the R2 wasn't only designed to save on costs and open the door to a more price-conscious consumer; it was also built to take Rivian global. While Rivian will start production of the R2 in Illinois in the first half of 2026, it won't initially focus on deliveries overseas. That said, we should see the much-hyped R2 in Europe in 2027, and it could be a phenomenal market for the young EV maker, as Europeans love their SUVs as much as Americans do. On the bright side, Rivian is already laying the groundwork by building a sales and service infrastructure in Europe. Are the optics of job cuts at a time when sales are declining a good look or comforting for investors? Of course not. Is Rivian's move to slash 1% of its workforce a red flag, though? Absolutely not. But what is important to investors is the success of the R2 and taking every reasonable cent of cost out of the vehicle and production operations. Rivian has immense upside but is not an investment for everyone, and the risk of owning the stock is high. Still, if you believe in the R2 and beyond, 2025 might bring you a buying opportunity if the company doesn't hit its delivery goals. Before you buy stock in Rivian Automotive, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Rivian Automotive wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $671,477!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,010,880!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,047% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 180% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 7, 2025 Daniel Miller has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Are Rivian's Job Cuts a Red Flag? was originally published by The Motley Fool Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
The Slate Truck Won't Get Any Cheaper Now That Trump Killed EV Incentives
The passage of the so-called "Big Beautiful Bill" will undoubtedly have countless unforeseen consequences that will become apparent in the days and weeks to come. One that has already come to light, courtesy of TechCrunch, is that the cancellation of the federal EV tax credit in September means the affordable Slate Truck will no longer be as affordable as everyone thought it would be. While Slate has not released any exact pricing, it has claimed that its small, affordable, and highly modular electric truck would cost less than $20,000 after the $7,500 federal EV incentive. Now that this credit is going away, customers will be on the hook for the full purchase price, which hits the wallet even harder on a vehicle already priced so low. Slate's website has already been updated to say "Expected price: Mid-Twenties" rather than "Under $20,000" as it did previously. That would align with a hypothetical purchase price of around $27,000 or less, which would have been $19,500 with the EV tax credit. Read more: No Spare? No Problem. Here's What Every Car Should Carry In Case Of A Flat With no new cars available under $20,000, pricing a new small truck, an EV no less, under that threshold would have been quite the feat. It certainly made for great marketing, encouraging more than 100,000 reservations. The cancellation of the EV tax credit, preventing this claim from coming true, is not Slate's fault. The blame falls squarely on the Trump Administration's misguided efforts to help the domestic auto industry, which will end up hurting it instead, particularly EV manufacturers other than Tesla. Even assuming a higher base purchase price somewhere around $27,000 without the tax credit, that's still less than the most basic versions of the Ford Maverick and Hyundai Santa Cruz, both of which cost more than $30,000 after destination charges. Slate's website claim that "Great cars got too pricey, we fixed that" is still valid in theory. Besides, most customers won't buy the most basic, bare-bones truck anyway. They plan to spend a bit more and take advantage of Slate's extensive customization options, up to and including turning it into an SUV. So don't count Slate out just yet. The truck may not be quite as affordable as we'd hoped, but it's still less expensive than anything else around, so we're cautiously optimistic. Want more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox... Read the original article on Jalopnik.
Ammon
7 hours ago
- Business
- Ammon
OpenAI delays the release of its open model, again
Ammon News - OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Friday the company is delaying the release of its open model, which was already pushed back a month earlier in this summer. OpenAI had planned to release the model next week, however Altman said the company is pushing it back indefinitely for further safety testing. 'We need time to run additional safety tests and review high-risk areas. we are not yet sure how long it will take us,' said Altman in a post on X. 'While we trust the community will build great things with this model, once weights are out, they can't be pulled back. This is new for us and we want to get it right.' OpenAI's open model release is one of the most highly anticipated AI events of the summer, alongside the ChatGPT maker's expected release of GPT-5. Unlike GPT-5, OpenAI's open model will be available for developers to freely download and run locally. Through both of these launches, OpenAI will attempt to demonstrate that it is still Silicon Valley's leading AI lab — an increasingly difficult task as xAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic invest billions of dollars in their own efforts. The delay means developers will have to wait a little longer to try the first open model OpenAI has released in years. TechCrunch previously reported that OpenAI's open model is expected to have similar reasoning capabilities to the company's o-series of models, and that OpenAI planned for it to be best-in-class compared to other open models. The ecosystem of open AI models became a little more competitive this week. Earlier on Friday, Chinese AI startup Moonshot AI launched Kimi K2, a one-trillion-parameter open AI model that outperforms OpenAI's GPT-4.1 AI model on several agentic-coding benchmarks. In June, when Altman announced the initial delays around OpenAI's open model, he noted that the company had achieved something 'unexpected and quite amazing,' but didn't elaborate on what that was. 'Capability wise, we think the model is phenomenal — but our bar for an open source model is high and we think we need some more time to make sure we're releasing a model we're proud of along every axis,' said Aidan Clark, OpenAI's VP of research who is leading the open model team, in a post on X Friday. TechCrunch previously reported that OpenAI leaders have discussed enabling the open AI model to connect to the company's cloud-hosted AI models for complex queries. However, it's unclear if these features will make it into the final open model.
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Elon Musk under pressure after announcing robotaxi takeover of major US city: 'Waiting on regulatory approvals'
As commenters online clamored for updates on Tesla's robotaxi expansion plans, CEO Elon Musk promised that Tesla autonomous vehicles would be offering paid rides in San Francisco within "a month or two," Reuters reported on Thursday. Musk blamed the delays on regulators, posting that Tesla was "waiting on regulatory approvals," per Reuters. The update came on the heels of Tesla's rollout of roughly a dozen robotaxis in Austin, Texas, which has featured human monitors riding in the front passenger seat and has yielded mixed results, NBC News reported. Dating back at least as far as 2016, Musk and Tesla have a history of broken promises surrounding the company's autonomous-vehicle technology, per TechCrunch. One customer even took the company to court over Tesla's 2016 claims that its then-current vehicles would be capable of autonomous driving once a software update became available. The customer won, with the court ordering Tesla to provide the required hardware updates for free and the judge calling Tesla's claims "false advertising," according to TechCrunch. In 2019, Musk said he was "very confident" the company would have robotaxis on the road within one year, CNBC reported at the time. The long-awaited robotaxi rollout comes at a crucial time for Tesla. The company's electric-vehicle sales have plummeted even as the broader EV market has grown, and taxi-based services could go a long way toward stabilizing the business's total offerings. Falling sales continued through the second quarter of 2025, with Tesla announcing a 13% decline in vehicle deliveries compared to one year ago, The Los Angeles Times reported. Even Musk himself has acknowledged that much of Tesla's $1 trillion valuation represents a bet on the company's autonomous-vehicle and AI technologies. Do you worry about robots taking away our jobs? Absolutely Yes — but it will create new ones too Possibly — but not significantly Not really Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. "Really the value of the company is primarily on the basis of autonomy," Musk said in 2023, per CNBC. Meanwhile, industry leader Waymo, owned by Google parent company Alphabet, announced in May that it already was offering 250,000 paid rides per week in 1,500 self-driving vehicles operating across multiple U.S. cities. These figures gave Waymo a considerable head start over Tesla's fledgling operation. Critics have warned that robotaxis and other autonomous technologies pose a threat to human jobs. One study estimated that autonomous vehicles will cost between 1.3 million and 2.3 million jobs over the next 30 years in the U.S. alone, not only among taxi and rideshare drivers, but also long-haul truck drivers and last-mile delivery drivers, according to Y-Mobility. One big silver lining is that, to date, all of the Waymo and Tesla self-driving vehicles on the road have been electric vehicles, which helps improve air quality in cities and reduce the amount of heat-trapping pollution entering the atmosphere. Driving an EV is also a great way to mitigate your own environmental impact. To push the benefits of driving an EV even further, you can install solar panels on your home, ensuring that your vehicle is running on energy from the sun, not dirty-burning fuels. Charging your EV with solar power also saves money compared to using a public charging station or charging off the grid. EnergySage makes it easy to compare quotes from vetted solar installers in your area, saving customers up to around $10,000 in the process with government incentives that are good through the remaining months of 2025. Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
