Hertz wants to sell 20,000 electric vehicles

TechCrunch Newsletter

By Christine Hall Thursday, January 11, 2024

Welcome back to today's Daily Crunch. In this edition, Hertz slashes its electric vehicle fleet, there's trouble at Google and a geofence warrant was issued in San Francisco. Let's dive in. Image Credits: Hertz

Daily Crunch Top 3 In today's top story, Sean reports that Hertz plans to sell off 20,000 of its electric vehicles, citing lower demand for EVs and higher-than-expected repair costs. Who had that on their 2024 Bingo card? Meanwhile, Ivan and Kate write that Google cuts hundreds of jobs across many of its divisions. A spokesperson said the layoffs were the result of some of the teams making changes "to become more efficient and work better, and to align their resources to their biggest product priorities." Read more. And Zack reports on what happened when a federal law enforcement agency requested a nearly two-mile-long geofence warrant in San Francisco. Get the scoop. Image Credits: TechCrunch / via ACLU

More top reads Speaking of Google: Aside from the layoffs, there was a bit of Google news today, including the removal of 17 "underutilized" features in Google Assistant, no more fees for transferring data out of Google Cloud and new generative AI tools for retailers. CES 2024: We're continuing to bring you highlights from CES 2024 in Las Vegas. Here are a few of your favorites from today: Taking a closer look at the Rownd tabletop CNC lathe Hyundai's hydrogen Hail Mary (TC+) Moustrap wants to bring some loving luxury to your mousing about EyeQ takes a fresh look at video call eye contact Car talk: First, Munich startup Finn is now valued at $658 million after raising $109 million to accelerate its car subscription platform that is gearing up for more electric vehicles. Next, Lucid Motors built over 8,000 luxury electric sedans in 2023, but it didn't sell all of them. Lucid, meet Finn. Finn, meet Lucid. No more middleman: Overmoon emerged from stealth with a part Airbnb, part hotel marketplace that teams up travelers with vacation rental property owners. Overmoon owns the homes, and as a result, has more control over the quality and maintenance of the properties. It's the best of both worlds. Meet Pier: The startup is building a "Stripe for credit" product. Developers add Pier's APIs with a few lines of code, and the company then manages the credit life cycle from end to end, including origination, underwriting, compliance and servicing. Learn more. Is India done with crypto?: When cryptocurrency went mainstream, reports predicted India would be at the forefront of those who wanted to participate. My, how the tides have turned. That old familiar tune: In Meta's continued bid to keep tracking and profiling users of Facebook and Instagram in Europe, in spite of the bloc's comprehensive data protection laws, the social media giant faces yet another challenge from a privacy rights advocacy group. Find out more. Takes a licking and keeps on ticking: iPhones always seem to fall in just the right way to crack the screen. So it's worth checking out how some iPhones from the Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 managed to survive a 16,000-foot drop. Even more for your Thursday: BlackRock cuts Byju's valuation by 95% to $1 billion FlutterFlow attracts cash for its low-code mobile app dev platform State-backed hackers are exploiting new Ivanti VPN zero-days — but no patches yet The United States' $1 trillion startup liquidity gap needs to be filled soon (TC+) Image Credits: Alex Tai/SOPA Images/LightRocket / Getty Images

On the pods Now that Bitcoin spot ETFs are a thing in the U.S., Jacquelyn interviewed Michael Sonnenshein, the CEO at Grayscale Investments, in this week's bonus episode of Chain Reaction. They discuss Grayscale's efforts to get this long-awaited approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Grayscale is a digital asset investment firm that aims to provide products and services to institutional and individual investors — it is well-known for its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) and now its new bitcoin spot ETF product. Listen here. Image Credits: Bryce Durbin

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X doesn’t want to see Bored Apes anymore

TechCrunch Newsletter

By Christine Hall Wednesday, January 10, 2024

In a surprise move, X removes support for NFT profile pictures for its paid subscribers. Ivan reports that for right now, people who do have that kind of profile picture still have a hexagonal avatar, but that could go away too. Meanwhile, though Elon Musk suggested users paying for verification would help solve the bot problem, Sarah writes about a new video that shows X now has a Verified bot problem. Next, we bring you some bad news: More layoffs. Lauren writes about a plan to cut hundreds of jobs at Amazon Prime Video and MGM Studios as it figures out where it wants to focus its efforts. And Paul reports on Humane's small, yet big news on laying off 10 people as its CTO also moves into an adviser role. Meanwhile, Tesla's refreshed Model 3 is coming to the United States. Sean writes that much of the upgrades are inside the vehicle. And don't forget about CES 2024 going on in Las Vegas this week. We continue to bring you a robust list of everything announced so far and some fun extras that our team encountered while on-site. Image Credits: TechCrunch

More top reads Prompts Royale: Two Brazilian developers didn't see a good solution for prompt engineering, so they are building one with Meistrari. Read more. Micromobility marriage: Tier and Dott, two startups focused on scooters and e-bikes, plan a merger to find a path to profitability. Learn how this consolidation will ride out. All we have to do is mention OpenAI: The company has been busy lately with some new features. One is a ChatGPT subscription aimed at small teams. The other is a store for custom AI-powered chatbots. CEO changes: Match Group promotes Faye Iosotaluno to Tinder CEO. She was previously the dating app's chief operating officer. Meanwhile, what's old is new again at Mirantis, an enterprise infrastructure software startup. Its former CEO Alex Freeland is coming back to take that same role. Five charts that explain the decline in VC: The TechCrunch+ team charted data from PitchBook on venture capital investment flows across the world to show you that, yes, VC was down in 2023. However, it's not that dramatic of a fall. When interest rates go up . . . : Companies like Downpayments get creative. In its case, it wants to offer real estate investors interest-free financing. However, investors dig it. Find out more. Finally: The open source Terraform fork OpenTofu is now ready for prime time four months after its initial launch. Here's why it took that long. Popping bottles: Seedstars Africa Ventures received a $30 million capital commitment from EIB Global to become the first major institutional investment for its first Pan-African venture capital fund. Read more. Put me in coach: Shimmer, a platform for one-on-one personalized ADHD coaching, raises $2.2 million. Learn how it helps adults. Even more for your Wednesday: Fujitsu, facing heat over UK Post Office scandal, continues to rake in billions from government deals The SEC wants $45 million from bankrupt Lordstown Motors Female-founded startup Diem wants to be the go-to social search engine for women and non-binary folks EU lawmakers under pressure to fully disclose dealings with child safety tech maker, Thorn Image Credits: atdigit / Getty Images

What executives say about AI's potential for business Sponsored by Workday We asked 2,355 executives about the business impact of AI and machine learning. Read our comprehensive report to see what they said about the opportunities, risks, and realities of AI. Read More

On the pods The new Equity Wednesday format launched today! In our newly revamped Wednesday episodes, we're going to be digging deep into critical startup and venture capital news. This week, PhotoRoom is raising more money, Treasure Financial is cutting staff, and two micromobility companies are tying the knot to try and use scale to their advantage. We’ll also look at what’s going on in the world of AI hardware, as well as why Keith Rabois is heading back to Khosla Ventures and Seedstars Africa Ventures adding $30 million to its upcoming fund. Listen here. Image Credits: Bryce Durbin

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