When TuSimple went public in 2021 it was flying excessive because the main self-driving vehicles developer in the USA. Now — after a string of inner controversies and the lack of a crucial partnership with truck producer Navistar — TuSimple is exiting the U.S. altogether.
The publicly traded mentioned in a regulatory submitting Monday that it’s shedding the vast majority of its U.S. workforce and promoting property right here because it exits the nation for Asia. About 150 U.S. staff, or 75% of workers within the nation, might be laid off. The remaining 50 staff will wind down TuSimple’s U.S. operations, together with the sale of property, and help with the corporate’s shift to the Asia-Pacific area, in keeping with the submitting.
As soon as the restructuring is full, TuSimple could have bout 700 full-time workers globally.
With TuSimple’s exit, few self-driving truck corporations stay, together with Aurora and Kodiak Robotics.
A yr in the past, TuSimple was exploring a unique enterprise state of affairs. The corporate, already battling govt shakeups and a delisting warning, misplaced its partnership with Navistar to co-develop autonomous vehicles. About 25% of workers have been laid off shortly after and TuSimple mentioned it was within the technique of promoting off its Asia-focused enterprise.
Six months later, TuSimple reversed course, doubling down on its operations in China and Japan whereas it started exploring strategic alternate options for its U.S. enterprise, together with a sale. The transfer was an about-face for TuSimple, an organization that adamantly recognized itself as an American firm with operations overseas, regardless of its founding group and earliest backers coming from China.
With no purchaser, TuSimple is now compelled to wind down its U.S. operations and dump any property.
TuSimple estimates it’ll incur one-time prices of about $7 million to $8 million in reference to the restructuring plan with a lot of the money used for severance funds, worker advantages, and associated prices. Nearly all of the restructuring prices might be recorded within the fourth quarter of 2023, the corporate mentioned.
