Autonomous delivery startup Nuro announced this week that it is laying off 30% of its workforce, or around 340 employees. The company will also be shifting its focus away from commercial operations and toward research and development (R&D).
This is the second round of layoffs for Nuro in the past year. In November 2022, the company let go of about 300 employees.
The layoffs are part of a broader restructuring effort at Nuro. The company is delaying the production of its third-generation Nuro bot (R3) vehicle and reducing the scale of its commercial pilots. Nuro is also exploring more efficient deployment models with partners.
The company says the changes will allow it to operate twice as long without raising more money.
Nuro was founded in 2016 by former Google Waymo engineers Jiajun Zhu and Dave Ferguson. The company has raised over $2 billion in funding and has regulatory approval for testing on public roads in Arizona, California, and Texas. In 2022, Nuro announced a partnership with Uber Eats to deliver food in select cities.
In a blog post, Nuro said that the layoffs are a “difficult but necessary decision” to ensure the company’s long-term success. The company said that it is committed to its mission of “delivering goods to people’s homes in a safe, efficient, and sustainable way.”
Nuro’s layoffs are a sign of the challenges facing the autonomous vehicle industry. The industry is still in its early stages of development, and companies are facing stiff competition from established players like Waymo and Uber.
Despite the challenges, Nuro remains optimistic about the future of autonomous delivery. The company said that it is “confident” that its technology will “transform the way people get things delivered.”
