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General Motors‘ self-driving vehicle unit Cruise acknowledged that some of its cars stalled out on city streets in San Francisco following rainstorms that downed trees there on Tuesday night.

A witness to the Cruise robotaxi failures, John-Phillip Bettencourt, shared photos of the stalled vehicles on Twitter.

He told CNBC that around 1:45 p.m. on March 22, a large tree on the corner of Jones and Clay streets fell onto lines that power the city’s buses, “pulling them down.” After that, another tree on Polk and Clay streets fell into the street. In response, he said, the San Francisco Fire Department had blocked off Clay between Polk and Jones streets with caution tape.

By 9:45 p.m. Bettencourt saw and took photos of the two self-driving Cruise vehicles halted in the face of these unusual obstacles. He said the driverless Cruise vehicles did not appear to detect and avoid the caution tape and bus wires properly, and instead became “tangled in them.”

Bettencourt told CNBC via message, “The first car was a little in the path of the cross-street (about half way). Leavenworth & Clay are the cross streets. The second car was not blocking anything because behind it was all blocked off (to cars other than robocars evidently) I think the technology is very interesting. I mean it’s the stuff people my age only talked about when we were kids.”

After Bettencourt shared his photos on Twitter, the official Cruise account replied: “Given the damage caused by last night’s storms, some of our cars briefly entered areas with downed trees or power lines. Some were able to proceed autonomously, but where needed we immediately dispatched teams to remove the vehicles.”

Read more about electric vehicles from CNBC Pro

A Cruise spokesperson told CNBC on Wednesday the vehicles were not transporting any passengers, and that no injuries or property damage occurred as a result of the driverless cars coming to a stop.

Earlier this week, Cruise filed an application with the California Department of Motor Vehicles to test its robotaxis statewide, not just in San Francisco where it has been testing for more than two years.

A California DMV spokesperson told CNBC, “The DMV is aware of this incident and is in contact with Cruise LLC to better understand the circumstances. When applying for a deployment or driverless testing permit from the DMV, companies must identify their intended operational design domain, including the geographical area and specified conditions under which the vehicle may operate autonomously. Cruise has permits to test and deploy autonomous vehicles in San Francisco all hours of day and night, excluding heavy rain.”

Cruise is one of just three companies authorized to commercially operate their autonomous vehicles on San Francisco city streets, alongside Alphabet-owned Waymo and startup Nuro.

Others are authorized to conduct autonomous vehicle testing in California with no human driver in the car, including Amazon-owned Zoox and Chinese startup WeRide, according to the DMV website

Bettencourt emphasized on social media and in messages to CNBC that he wasn’t trying to insult Cruise or be overly critical about Cruise. He took and shared photos of their cars halted on the streets of Nob Hill because he saw “something crazy that happened on my street on a crazy night,” he said.

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Nvidia positioned to weather Trump tariffs, chip demand ‘off the charts,’ says Altimeter’s Gerstner

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Nvidia positioned to weather Trump tariffs, chip demand 'off the charts,' says Altimeter's Gerstner

Altimeter CEO Brad Gerstner is buying Nvidia

Altimeter Capital CEO Brad Gerstner said Thursday that he’s moving out of the “bomb shelter” with Nvidia and into a position of safety, expecting that the chipmaker is positioned to withstand President Donald Trump’s widespread tariffs.

“The growth and the demand for GPUs is off the charts,” he told CNBC’s “Fast Money Halftime Report,” referring to Nvidia’s graphics processing units that are powering the artificial intelligence boom. He said investors just need to listen to commentary from OpenAI, Google and Elon Musk.

President Trump announced an expansive and aggressive “reciprocal tariff” policy in a ceremony at the White House on Wednesday. The plan established a 10% baseline tariff, though many countries like China, Vietnam and Taiwan are subject to steeper rates. The announcement sent stocks tumbling on Thursday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq down more than 5%, headed for its worst day since 2022.

The big reason Nvidia may be better positioned to withstand Trump’s tariff hikes is because semiconductors are on the list of exceptions, which Gerstner called a “wise exception” due to the importance of AI.

Nvidia’s business has exploded since the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, and annual revenue has more than doubled in each of the past two fiscal years. After a massive rally, Nvidia’s stock price has dropped by more than 20% this year and was down almost 7% on Thursday.

Gerstner is concerned about the potential of a recession due to the tariffs, but is relatively bullish on Nvidia, and said the “negative impact from tariffs will be much less than in other areas.”

He said it’s key for the U.S. to stay competitive in AI. And while the company’s chips are designed domestically, they’re manufactured in Taiwan “because they can’t be fabricated in the U.S.” Higher tariffs would punish companies like Meta and Microsoft, he said.

“We’re in a global race in AI,” Gerstner said. “We can’t hamper our ability to win that race.”

WATCH: Brad Gerstner is buying Nvidia

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YouTube announces Shorts editing features amid potential TikTok ban

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YouTube announces Shorts editing features amid potential TikTok ban

Jaque Silva | Nurphoto | Getty Images

YouTube on Thursday announced new video creation tools for Shorts, its short-form video feed that competes against TikTok. 

The features come at a time when TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is at risk of an effective ban in the U.S. if it’s not sold to an American owner by April 5.

Among the new tools is an updated video editor that allows creators to make precise adjustments and edits, a feature that automatically syncs video cuts to the beat of a song and AI stickers.

The creator tools will become available later this spring, said YouTube, which is owned by Google

Along with the new features, YouTube last week said it was changing the way view counts are tabulated on Shorts. Under the new guidelines, Shorts views will count the number of times the video is played or replayed with no minimum watch time requirement. 

Previously, views were only counted if a video was played for a certain number of seconds. This new tabulation method is similar to how views are counted on TikTok and Meta’s Reels, and will likely inflate view counts.

“We got this feedback from creators that this is what they wanted. It’s a way for them to better understand when their Shorts have been seen,” YouTube Chief Product Officer Johanna Voolich said in a YouTube video. “It’s useful for creators who post across multiple platforms.”

WATCH: TikTok is a digital Trojan horse, says Hayman Capital’s Kyle Bass

TikTok is a digital Trojan horse, says Hayman Capital's Kyle Bass

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Tech stocks sink after Trump tariff rollout — Apple heads for worst drop in 5 years

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Tech stocks sink after Trump tariff rollout — Apple heads for worst drop in 5 years

CEO of Meta and Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attend the inauguration ceremony before Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th U.S. president in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in Washington, Jan. 20, 2025.

Saul Loeb | Via Reuters

Technology stocks plummeted Thursday after President Donald Trump’s new tariff policies sparked widespread market panic.

Apple led the declines among the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group, dropping nearly 9%. The iPhone maker makes its devices in China and other Asian countries. The stock is on pace for its steepest drop since 2020.

Other megacaps also felt the pressure. Meta Platforms and Amazon fell more than 7% each, while Nvidia and Tesla slumped more than 5%. Nvidia builds its new chips in Taiwan and relies on Mexico for assembling its artificial intelligence systems. Microsoft and Alphabet both fell about 2%.

Semiconductor stocks also felt the pain, with Marvell Technology, Arm Holdings and Micron Technology falling more than 8% each. Broadcom and Lam Research dropped 6%, while Advanced Micro Devices declined more than 4% Software stocks ServiceNow and Fortinet fell more than 5% each.

Read more CNBC tech news

The drop in technology stocks came amid a broader market selloff spurred by fears of a global trade war after Trump unveiled a blanket 10% tariff on all imported goods and a range of higher duties targeting specific countries after the bell Wednesday. He said the new tariffs would be a “declaration of economic independence” for the U.S.

Companies and countries worldwide have already begun responding to the wide-sweeping policy, which included a 34% tariff on China stacked on a previous 20% tax, a 46% duty on Vietnam and a 20% levy on imports from the European Union.

China’s Ministry of Commerce urged the U.S. to “immediately cancel” the unilateral tariff measures and said it would take “resolute counter-measures.”

The tariffs come on the heels of a rough quarter for the tech-heavy Nasdaq and the worst period for the index since 2022. Stocks across the board have come under pressure over concerns of a weakening U.S. economy. The Nasdaq Composite dropped nearly 5% on Thursday, bringing its year-to-date loss to 13%.

Trump applauded some megacap technology companies for investing money into the U.S. during his speech, calling attention to Apple’s plan to spend $500 billion over the next four years.

Evercore ISI's Amit Daryanani on keeping Apple's outperform rating despite tariffs

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