The Navigator

The second half of 2022 turned out to be a mixed bag for the automated-driving sector. The capital that was flowing so freely from the mid-2010s onward has largely dried up and the long-expected consolidation in the sector seems to have begun. One of the leaders in the segment surprised the industry when it announced that it was shutting down. Others have reduced their operations.

For the last decade, investors around the world have willingly thrown mountains of cash at AV startups that produce no revenue and show little prospect of near-term profits. Those investors suddenly have turned off the taps. As a result, dozens of companies, including Aurora Innovation, TuSimple and Luminar, all of which went public prematurely in 2020 and 2021, have seen their valuations collapse by 80-90% or more in the past year.