Gogoro announced today that its Eeyo 1s is now available for sale in France, the smart electric bike’s first European market. Another model, the Eeyo 1, will launch over the next few months in France, Belgium, Monaco, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the Czech Republic.

In France, the Eeyo 1s can be purchased through Fnac, Darty or, in Paris, Les Cyclistes Branchés. The Eeyo 1s is priced at €4699 including VAT, while the the Eeyo 1 will be priced at €4599, also including VAT.

The weight of Eeyo bikes is one of their key selling points and Gogoro says they are about half the weight of most other e-bikes. The Eeyo 1s weighs 11.9 kg and the Eeyo 1 clocks in at 12.4 kg.  Both have carbon fiber frames and forks, but the Eeyo 1s’ seat post, handlebars and rims are also carbon fiber, while on the Eeyo 1 they are made with an alloy.

Based in Taiwan, Gogoro first introduced its Eeyo lineup in May. The e-bikes are the company’s second type of vehicle after its SmartScooters, electric scooters that are powered by swappable batteries. The Eeyo bike’s key technology is the SmartWheel, a self-contained hub that integrates its motor, battery, sensor and smart connectivity technology so it can be paired with a smartphone app.

In an interview for the Eeyo’s launch, Gogoro co-founder and chief executive Horace Luke said the company began planning for Eeyo’s launch in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. While sale of e-bikes were already growing steadily before COVID-19, the pandemic has accelerated sales of e-bikes as people avoid public transportation and stay closer to home. Several cities have also closed some streets to car traffic, making riders more willing to use bikes for short commutes and exercise.

Founded in 2011 and backed by investors including Temasek, Sumitomo Corporation, Panasonic, the National Development Fund of Taiwan and Generation (the sustainable tech fund led by former vice president Al Gore), Gogoro is best known for its electric scooters, but it is also working on a turnkey solution for energy-efficient vehicles to license to other companies, with the goal of reducing carbon emissions in cities around the world.

Faraday Future, the electric vehicle startup with a messy and complicated past, is planning to go public through a special-purchase acquisition company (SPAC) deal.

The company’s chief executive Carsten Breitfeld told Reuters that the company is working on a reverse merger with a SPAC and “will be able to announce something hopefully quite soon.”

Breitfeld, formerly the co-founder of Chinese EV startup Byton, declined to give more information about who Faraday is talking to or when the deal will closed. A Faraday Future spokesperson contacted by TechCrunch also said the company had no further details to share at this time.

SPACs are blank-check companies that are formed to raise money through an initial public offering in order to merge or acquire other companies. As TechCrunch’s Connie Loizos wrote in an explainer, they’ve become more popular among tech companies recently because many had their initial public offering plans delayed by the pandemic. SPACs also present an alternative to the regulatory issues surrounding traditional IPOs.

Shortly after being appointed CEO in September 2019, Breitfeld told Automotive News that Faraday Future wanted to raise about $850 million by the first quarter of 2020. By that time, company had already received $225 million in bridge financing led by Birch Lake Associates. The funding’s purpose is to finally bring Faraday’s flagship vehicle, the FF91 luxury electric SUV, to market.

Though the SPAC deal’s timeline is still undisclosed, Breitfeld told Reuters that Faraday Future plans to start volume production of the FF91, its first electric luxury SUV, 12 months after securing funding. This would represent a major milestone for the company, which was founded in 2015 but hasn’t produced a production vehicle yet. Faraday Future has made several prototypes, including one that went up for auction in August.

If the deal is successful, Breitfeld told Reuters that Faraday Future will first build the FF91 at its Hanford, California plant, but then work with a contract manufacturer in Asia that it has already entered into an agreement with.

Faraday Future’s financial issues date back to 2017, when LeEco, the Chinese tech company it was closely linked to, began dealing with multiple financial headaches of its own. They worsened when Faraday Future fell out with its main backer, Evergrande Health, in 2018.

Many of those issues were tied to Jia Yueting, founder and former CEO of LeEco and Faraday Future, who filed for personal bankruptcy earlier this year. Filings in the case revealed that Jia’s bankruptcy was funded by one of Faraday Future’s main holding companies, Pacific Technology. The documents also revealed that Faraday Future had just $6.8 million in cash at the end of July 2019.

Breitfeld told Reuters that Jia no longer owns stock in Faraday Future. The approval of Jia’s bankruptcy enabled Faraday Future to once again pursue investments to produce its electric vehicles, though now that may hinge on the success of its SPAC deal. Breitfeld acknowledged that Faraday Future’s past raises questions. “Because of the history and sometimes the bad news of the company, not everyone is really trusting us,” he told Reuters. “They want to see that we’ve become a stable company.”

Neuron Mobility, a Singapore-based e-scooter rental startup, announced today that it has added $12 million to its Series A. Led by Square Peg, an Australian venture capital firm and GSR Ventures, this increases the round’s new total to $30.5 million. The company, which operates in Australia and New Zealand in addition to Southeast Asian markets, first announced its Series A in December 2019.

Part of Neuron Mobility’s growth plans hinges on the increased adoption of electric scooters and bikes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many people are using their cars less frequently because they are working remotely or there are movement restrictions where they live. When they do go out, electric bikes and scooters offer an alternative to public transportation and ride-hailing services for short trips.

Neuron Mobility’s chief executive Zachary Wang said the company raised a Series A+ instead of moving onto a Series B because more cities are “opening up to the possibility of micromobility, particularly rental e-scooters as they present an individual transport option that takes pressure off public transport and allows people to continue social distancing.”

“We’ve been experiencing tremendous growth in ANZ and the pandemic has made us fast track our plans,” he added.

Though Neuron Mobility currently does not operate in other Southeast Asian countries besides Singapore, Wang said it is “constantly evaluating opportunities across APAC.”

The new funding will be used to speed up Neuron Mobility’s expansion plans in Australia and New Zealand, where it claims to be the leading electric scooter rental operator. The company is currently present in nine locations, including Auckland, New Zealand, and Australian cities Adelaide, Brisbane, Darwin, Canberra and Townsville. Neuron Mobility plans to expand into five new cities over the next two months and part of that involves hiring 400 more people in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. In addition to the Asia-Pacific, Neuron Mobility will also launch in Slough, it’s first location in the United Kingdom, by the end of this year.

Neuron Mobility’s research found that before the COVID-19 lockdowns in Australia, one in five of its users had never used an e-scooter before. But now Australian and New Zealand users have increased their average e-scooter trip distances by 23% to 2.6 kilometers, with the average duration of rides rising by 10% to more than 14 minutes. Neuron Mobility’s pricing is meant to be affordable depending on different markets. For example, in Brisbane, users pay one Australian dollar (about 68 U.S. cents) to begin a trip and then 38 Australian cents for each minute of the ride. Its e-scooters can go up to speeds of about 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) per hour.

Other “micromobility” companies, including Ofo, Reddy Go, Obike and Lime, have also offered rental services in Australia and New Zealand, but ran into trouble. Bike-sharing startups Ofo, Reddy Go and Obike withdrew from Australia in part because city councils were frustrated by bikes were being abandoned on sidewalks and in parks. Lime still operates in Australian cities, but in June, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission found that the company failed to disclose safety issues with its Generation 2 scooters (in response, Lime said it would implement new compliance procedures and upgrade to its new Generation 3 scooter).

Wang said Neuron Mobility avoids those issues by strategically planning which cities it will launch in, instead of focusing on rapid expansion, partnering with city councils and “continually shifting and adapting to meet their needs.” Several of Neuron Mobility’s features, including geofencing to control where and how fast e-scooters can be ridden, and a “Helmet Lock” to make helmets available for all scooters, were developed after discussions with city councils. Neuron Mobility’s scooters, designed by the company specifically for renting, also use swappable batteries to decrease pollution.

After launching in Singapore, Neuron Mobility decided to focus on Australia and New Zealand because “both countries have cities that are highly suitable for micromobility in terms of infrastructure and regulations,” Wang said. City councils have also “been keen to push the boundaries of what can be done with technology to make programs better and safer and that really suits our way of thinking.”

Mobileye’s computer vision technology will be used in a new premium electric vehicle called Zero Concept from Geely Auto Group, one of China’s largest privately-held automobile manufacturers. Mobileye’s owner Intel made the announcement today at the Beijing Auto Show. Zero Concept is produced by Lynk & Co., the brand formed as a joint venture between Geely Auto and Volvo Car Group, and uses Mobileye’s SuperVision driving-assistance system.

Intel also announced that Mobileye and Geely Auto have signed a long-term, high-volume agreement for advanced driver-assistance systems that means more Geely Auto vehicles will be equipped with Mobileye’s computer vision technology.

In a post, Mobileye chief executive officer and Intel senior vice president Amnon Shashua wrote that the deal is the first time “Mobileye will be responsible for the full solution stack, including hardware and software, driving policy and control.”

He added “it also marks the first time that an OEM has publicly noted Mobileye’s plan to provide over-the-air updates to the system after deployment. While this capacity has always been in our repertoire, Geey and Mobileye want to assure customers that we can easily scale their driving-assistance features and keep everything up to date across the car’s lifetime.”

Based in Israel, Mobileye was acquired by Intel in 2017 for $15.3 billion. Its technology and services are used in vehicles from automakers including BMW, Audi, Volkswagen, Nissan, Honda and General Motors, and includes features that warn drivers about issues like blind spots, potential lane departures, collision risks and speed limits.

Geely Auto’s parent company is Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, also the parent company of Volvo Car Group. In 2019, Geely Auto Group says its brands sold a total of more than 1.46 million units. China is one of the fastest-growing electric vehicle markets in the world, and even though sales were hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic, government policies, including consumer subsidies and investment in charging infrastructure, are expected to help its EV market recover.

Global communications startup Kymeta has raised a new $85.2 million funding round, led by Bill Gates . The Redmond-based company has developed a new type of smart, powered flat panel antenna that can be used to to vastly improve satellite and cellular connection signal strength.

Kymeta’s new funding is intended to help it continue with new product development efforts, and also to speed the commercialization of its technology. Since its debut in 2015, Kymeta has productized its technology and added a significant number of customers, particularly in industries like defense, mobility and public safety.

The company’s tech is electronically steered and requires no moving parts to operate, which is a huge advantage over traditional satellite reception dishes – particularly in applications like on aircraft, on ships and in other transportation methods where having a satellite dish attached to the outside of your vehicle doesn’t make any sense or is impossible.

Kymeta’s tech also has significant potential advantages when it comes to working with the new generation of low Earth orbit communications satellite constellations the are coming online today and in the near future. Because of the dynamic nature of its flat panel antennas, it can track and adjust position when maintaining connection with these satellites as they move across the sky – a task that requires more flexibility when compared to maintaining connections with the large, fixed-position geostationary communications satellites that form the backbone of legacy satellites internet networks.

Xpeng Motors, the Chinese electric vehicle startup, has raised about $500 million in Series C+ funding from investors including Aspex, Coatue, Hillhouse Capital and Sequoia Capital China.

Based in Guangzhou, Xpeng’s other backers include a roster of top Chinese tech companies and investors, including Alibaba Group, Xiaomi, IDG Capital, Morningside Venture Capital, GGV Capital and Primavera Capital.

The company’s last funding announcement before this one was in November, when it said it had closed a $400 million Series C and taken on Xiaomi as a strategic investor.

The company didn’t disclose its current post-money valuation, but a source told TechCrunch after its Series C in November that it was “better” than the 25 billion yuan valuation it achieved after its Series B+ round announced in August 2018. Since then, Xpeng has hit two milestones: it released its second smart electric vehicle, the P7 sports sedan, in April 2020, as China was recovering from COVID-19 lockdowns, and in May 2020, secured a production license for its second factory, located in Zhaoqing, Guangdong Province.

The company’s first electric vehicle, the G3 SUV, was launched in December 2018.

Xpeng said last year it eventually plans to hold an initial public offering but wants to build its core business first. Along with other Chinese startups like Nio, Xpeng also competes with Tesla and established automakers like BYD and BAIC group that offer their own electric vehicles.

Tesla is currently suing a Xpeng engineer for allegedly misusing Tesla’s trade secrets. Last month, a United States District Court judge denied one of Tesla’s requests related to the lawsuit’s discovery process. Xpeng said at the time that the ruling “highlights Tesla’s gamemanship and use of discovery as an improper measure to stop with its competitor from competing successfully in the self-driving industry.”

One of Xpeng’s differentiators from some of its rivals is that it builds almost all of its software, and some of its essential hardware, in-house instead of relying on OEMs, including XPILOT, its autonomous driving system; Xmart OS, its in-car operating system; and over-the-air firmware updates.

All electric vehicle makers in China are coping with strong market headwinds. China has the largest electric vehicle market in the world, with more than 400 electric vehicle manufacturers registered in the country. The market grew quickly thanks in large part to government investment and subsidies for buyers, but last year many of those financial incentives were pulled back as Beijing grew concerned about the industry’s rapid expansion.

Along with the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced many Chinese automakers to shut down production earlier this year, this triggered a huge drop in electric vehicle sales (at the same time, sales of traditional cars also fell), leading to speculation that there may be consolidation among rival EV companies.

Tesla has lowered the price of another vehicle. This time it’s the Model Y, an electric SUV the company started shipping in March. The long-range all-wheel drive version of the car is now listed with a purchase price of $49,990, or $3,000 less than what it was before. The car’s new pricing was first reported by Electrek over the weekend.

In May, Tesla cut prices for several of its electric cars, including high-end vehicles like the Model S sedan and the Model X SUV. The new pricing comes as U.S. automakers try to attract buyers despite the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The traditional big three U.S. automakers, Ford, GM and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, are offering 0% financing rates, in addition to deferred or longer-term payment options, while other automakers have also announced incentives and payment plans to appeal to new buyers and keep existing owners from defaulting on loans.

At the beginning of this month, Tesla said it delivered 90,650 vehicles in the second quarter, a 4.8% decline due to the pandemic and suspension of production at its main U.S. factory for several weeks, but still better than analysts’ expectations. Most of the deliveries, or 80,050, were Model 3 and Model Y, while the remaining 10,600 were its higher-end Model S and Model X.

Gogoro, the mobility company best known for its SmartScooters, revealed details about its new ebike brand Eeyo today. Eeyo will launch with two lightweight models, both powered by the SmartWheel, a self-contained hub designed by the company that integrates motors, batteries, sensors and smart connectivity technology.

Eeyo is the first product that Gogoro will introduce in the United States, nine years after it was founded by HTC executives. The ebikes will go on sale there and in Taiwan, where Gogoro is based, in July, and in Europe shortly afterward.

With more than 300,000 customers, Gogoro’s SmartScooters and their charging stations are a common sight in Taiwanese cities. Technology developed by the company, including its lightweight rechargeable batteries, are also used in scooters made by Yamaha, Suzuki, Aeon and PGO. It plans to make Eeyo’s tech available to manufacturing partners as well.

Gogoro co-founder and CEO Horace Luke told TechCrunch that even though scooters are widely used in many cities in Asia and Europe, they are less common in the U.S., so the company decided to make Eeyo its first American launch instead of the SmartScooter.

The team began planning Eeyo’s launch a year ago and even though they could not have anticipated it would happen during COVID-19, Luke said the pandemic has created new demand for ebikes, a market that was already growing quickly.

“At the moment, use of public transportation is down and people are very cautious about it. This is forcing people to find alternative ways to get around,” said Luke. “A lot of cities are very hilly, commutes are long and with streets closed, cars are not as efficient as they used to be. So there is a huge demand and the ebike market is blowing up.”

The company began working on Eeyo about three years ago, with the idea of creating a “human-electric hybrid.”

“That sounds like a fancy way of saying ‘e-bike’ until you ride what we made,” Luke said. “It took a lot of time for us to create this project. Instead of focusing on utility and the power assistance to get somewhere, we wanted to create a different paradigm. Thinking ‘I need to take my ebike to the grocery store’ isn’t usually exciting, but we wanted to focus on agility and excitement.”

Eeyo’s first ebike models, the 1 and 1s, were designed with a specific user in mind: city dwellers who want agile, fast bikes that are able to handle tricky terrain like hills. “I kept telling our team, I want the bike to give me the same feeling I had when I was 18 and able to get somewhere without breaking into a sweat. I wanted to bring that excitement and joy back into riding a two-wheeler to our customers.”

The Eeyo 1s and 1 weigh 26.4 pounds and 27.5 pounds, respectively, much lighter than many ebikes, which typically weigh 45 to 50 pounds. Its carbon fiber frame was designed so riders can carry the bikes on their shoulder. They are charged either by snapping chargers around their hubs, or placing them on an optional stand charger.

Most of the technology used in Gogoro’s SmartScooters, including its batteries and charging stations, were designed by the company’s engineers. SmartWheel, the key technology behind Eeyo, was also developed in-house.

“What drives the mechanism for performance is our innovation, the SmartWheel,” said Luke. “It is a hub-based motor, it has a battery and sensors in it, a computer system and a motor system.” That includes Gogoro’s Intelligent Power Assist system, which uses a torque sensor to detect how hard a rider is pedaling and calculate the amount of assistance the bike needs to give.

The SmartWheel also connects to the Eeyo app, which enables riders to monitor their speed and pedaling power when their smartphones are mounted to the bike. It also downloads over-the-air firmware and software updates for the bike, similar to the Gogoro SmartScooter’s automatic updates.

Both Eeyo models use the SmartWheel, have full carbon fiber frames and forks, and two riding modes: “sport mode,” which responds to the rider’s pedaling and delivers about 40 miles of range, or the distance the bike can be used to travel on one charge, and “Eco Mode,” which conserves battery power by limiting power assistance and can extend the ebike’s range to 55 miles.

The Eeyo 1s is available in one color, “warm white,” and its seat post, handlebars and rims are also made out of full carbon fiber. It weighs 26.4 pounds and will be priced at $4,599. The Eeyo 1 comes in two colors, “cloud blue” and “lobster orange,” and uses alloy seat posts, handlebars and rims instead. It weighs 27.5 pounds and will cost $3,899.

Gogoro sees itself as a mobility platform business that not only manufactures vehicles, but also develops technology for electric vehicles and vehicle sharing. Luke said the company wants to offer its ebike technology, including the SmartWheel, for use by other manufacturers because Gogoro “has never taken a one-size-fits-all approach, even with our scooter business. That is one reason we work with Yamaha, Suzuki, PGO, Aeon.”

Working with partners also furthers the company’s goal of getting more electric vehicles on the street and reducing pollution.

“We only have X amount of years to make changes and if we get more people alongside us, we can make a giant impact,” Luke added. “Other people will build different form factors, ones that are more leisure-like, more focused on utility, while we focus on sportiness, agility and fun.”

Waymo has added an additional $800 million to the $2.25 billion funding round that it first announced in March, bringing the total size of the financing (its first from investors outside of Alphabet) to $3 billion. The extension comes from new investors including those managed by T. Rowe Price, Perry Creek Capital, Fidelity Management and Research Company and others.

The extension, like the original round itself, will be used by Waymo to invest in its workforce, product development and operating its Waymo One ride-hailing service, as well as its Waymo Via cargo and goods transportation service.

Waymo’s move to bring in external funding is seen as a way for the autonomous driving company to inject fresh capital into its program, as well as bring on new strategic partners, like Magna and AutoNation, which participated in the previously announced tranche. While the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a temporary setback when it comes to its testing and service deployment programs, Waymo notes in a new blog post from CEO John Krafcik that the crisis actually underscores the need for its technology.

“COVID-19 has underscored how fully self-driving technology can provide safe and hygienic personal mobility and delivery services,” Kracik notes in the post. “We’re grateful these partners share our mission to make it safe and easy for people and things to get where they’re going.”

After suspending them at the end of March because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Waymo has announced it will resume driving operations on May 11 in Arizona.

Waymo will start its driving operations in the Phoenix area again, a decision the company says it made after discussions with “our teams, partners and local and state authorities,” before restoring them in other cities, including San Francisco, Detroit and Los Angeles.

Arizona’s stay at home order expires on May 15, but academic experts have expressed concern that Arizona hasn’t reached the peak of its COVID-19 outbreak yet and some who worked with the state government recently told the Washington Post that they were asked to “pause” work on projections and modeling.

The company’s announcement says this is the first step in a “tiered approach to safely resume our operations,” starting with its test fleet and then eventually offering Waymo One, its self-driving ride hailing service, again.

Waymo said it is following safety guidance from local and state governments, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Safety measures Waymo has implemented include requiring personnel to wear face masks in its facilities or vehicles, unless someone is driving alone in a vehicle and a partnership with AutoNation to clean cars several times a day.

The company says it has also limited maximum capacity and put in social distancing guidelines for its work areas, created health and safety training for its team and will work with occupational healthcare providers to screen people before they enter facilities.

Gogoro, the Taiwanese company known for its electric scooters, announced a new ebike brand that will go on sale in the United States first. Details about the ebike, called Eeyo, haven’t been released yet, but it is noteworthy because it marks Gogoro’s first product launch in the U.S.

Eeyo be available for purchase in the U.S. in May, before launching in Europe and Taiwan this summer.

View this post on Instagram

A new ebike from @gogoro_taiwan. Coming to the US in May. Prepare for liftoff.

A post shared by Gogoro Eeyo (@eeyobike) on Apr 22, 2020 at 1:07pm PDT

Founded in 2015 by former HTC executives Horace Luke and Matt Taylor, Gogoro says its Smartscooters are now the best-selling brand of electric two-wheel vehicles in Taiwan. The company also licenses its technology, including swappable, rechargeable batteries, to manufacturers like Yamaha, Aeon and PGO.

In Europe, Gogoro provided the fleet for Coup, the scooter-sharing service owned by Bosch, before it shut down last year.

Despite being best known for its Smartscooters, and the upcoming launch of Eeyo, Gogoro doesn’t just see itself as an electric vehicle maker. In an interview last year with Extra Crunch, Luke, Gogoro’s CEO, said the startup’s future lies in providing a platform for energy-efficient vehicles.

Last year it launched GoShare, a vehicle-sharing platform that will be available to other mobility companies as a turnkey solution for “any form factor” of vehicle.

Hot Wheels will ship you a Cybertruck long before Tesla is likely to make any deliveries on their electric retro-future wheels trapezoid: The toy maker just unveiled two different RC Cybertruck models, including a 1:64 scale model at just $20 – and a much larger 1:10 scale version for $400.

These are available to pre-order now, but like most of Tesla’s cars, just because they’re introduced doesn’t mean you can go out and buy one immediately. They’re set to ship in time for the holidays, however, with a December 15, 2020 estimated availability date according to the Hot Wheels website.

These look like very faithful representation of the Cybertruck that Tesla unveiled at a special event back in November, and the large version includes a “reusable cracked window vinyl sticker” that you can use to recreate the on-stage flub that happened at the actual reveal. You’ll have to supply your own large metal medicine ball.

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Other features of the 1:10 scale Cybertruck including functioning headlights and taillights, all-wheel drive, true to form ‘Chill’ and ‘Sport’ modes, a removable tonneau cover, a working telescopic tailgate and more.

The smaller and much more affordable version is just 3-inches long, which is basically what you’d expect from a traditional Hot Wheels mini model, and it can achieve a “up to 500mph scale speed” which someone who is better than me at math can figure out what that translates to.

These are available now, to people in the U.S. and Canada, but I expect them to be pretty hot sellers based on the general fervor and interest around all things Cybertruck to date.