Robotaxi put it in park, events not to miss, and other things to know in Houston energy transition news

get up to speed

Cruise pauses in Houston and beyond — and more things to know this week. Photo via Cruise/Facebook

Editor's note: It's a new week — start it strong with three quick things to know in Houston's energy transition ecosystem: events not to miss, robotaxis take a break, and more.

Events this week

Don't miss these two events.

November 7-8: Hydrogen North America 2024 will host the hydrogen sector's thought leaders for a two-day event. Learn more.
November 8 — The Houston Innovation Awards will honor the city's startups, entrepreneurs, and ecosystem, including energy tech innovators. Learn more.

Cruise hits the brakes

Cruise launched in Houston in October. Photo courtesy of Cruise

Self-driving taxi service, Cruise, which recently launched in Houston, has put it in park for the time being, as TechCrunch reported last month.

The company's California permit was rescinded, and Cruise announced a national pause on its service in a statement.

"The most important thing for us right now is to take steps to rebuild public trust. Part of this involves taking a hard look inwards and at how we do work at Cruise, even if it means doing things that are uncomfortable or difficult," reads the statement. "In that spirit, we have decided to proactively pause driverless operations across all of our fleets while we take time to examine our processes, systems, and tools and reflect on how we can better operate in a way that will earn public trust. This is not related to any new on-road incidents, and our supervised AV operations will continue."

Meet LYB — and its latest sustainability deal

LyondellBasell has rebranded as LYB. Photo via lyondellbasell.com

LyondellBasell has rebranded as LYB, revealing a new logo, tagline, and visual identity.

“With our new strategy firmly in place, our employees are adopting new ways of working to generate innovative, value-enhancing solutions to support our goals,” Peter Vanacker, LYB's CEO, says in the release.

The Dutch company, whose U.S. headquarters is in Houston, also recently announced that it has purchased a 25 percent stake in a joint venture that seeks to accelerate advancements in plastic recycling.

Cruise is now cruising some Houston streets. The self-driving car service has launched with $5 flat-rate rides. Photo courtesy of Cruise

Fleet of self-driving electric vehicles rolls out to transport Houstonians

automated EV

For the first time, Houstonians can hail an autonomous electric vehicle to get from point A to point B, thanks to a tech company's latest market roll out.

San Francisco-based Cruise, which has launched in its hometown, Phoenix, and Austin over the past year and a half, previously announced Houston and Dallas as the company's next stops. Dallas, where Cruise is currently undergoing testing, will roll out its service by the end of the year.

As of October 12, Houstonians in the Downtown, Midtown, East Downtown, Montrose, Hyde Park, and River Oaks neighborhoods can hail a ride from an autonomous electric vehicle seven days a week between the hours of 9 pm to 6 am.

"We believe that everyone has a right to safer, more accessible and more affordable transportation, and we remain focused on cities first because that’s where our mission will have the greatest impact. Houston follows that city-first strategy with its densely traversed downtown, propensity for ridehail, and vibrant cultural center," Sola Lawal, Cruise's Houston manager, tells InnovationMap. "Cruise also shares in Houston’s Vision Zero mission to end traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030 and we’re excited to address the transportation needs of Houston communities."

Although today marks the launch to the public, Cruise's employees and their friends and family have been testing out the service since August.

"People love this shift from working for your car as the driver, to the car working for you and the time this gives people back in their days," he explains. "A common reaction from first time riders starts with people being shocked and awed for the first two minutes then the ride becomes so normal that you forget you're in a driverless car."

Founded in 2013 by CEO, CTO, and President Kyle Vogt and Chief Product Officer Dan Kan, Cruise vehicles have self-driven over 5 million miles — 1 million of those miles were cruised on Texas streets. The company's fleet includes 400 electric vehicles powered by renewable energy.

Cruise's plan for Houston is to launch and grow from there, including launching larger passenger vehicles, the Origin fleet, for bigger groups of people.

"We always start small and methodically expand from there. For us it’s all about safety and how we expand in partnership with communities, so we let that be our guide for expansion vs arbitrary timelines," Lawal says. "Our goal is to continue to expand as quickly and safely as possible so we can get folks to the Rodeo when it starts and back home, anywhere in Houston, when it ends. You can expect expanded map areas, increased supply of AVs, and expanded hours until we are 24/7 across Houston."

Cruise has raised $10 billion in capital commitments from investors, including General Motors, Honda, Microsoft, T. Rowe Price, Walmart, and others. Additionally, the tech company has also a $5 billion credit line with GM Financial, giving it the financial support needed to scale. Strategically aligned with General Motors and Honda, Cruise has fully integrated manufacturing at scale.

Cruise, which touts a pricing model competitive to existing rideshares, is launching with $5 flat-rate rides for passengers.

"Houstonians who ride with us have the chance to be part of history in the making," Lawal tells Houston's to-be Cruise riders. "The industry has made incredible progress in the last two years but we are still in the early days of what’s to come as driverless ridehail becomes a reality for more people.

"We are proud of the service we’ve built so far and the safety record we have to show for it, but will always continue to improve. We're excited to launch with the community of Houston and we simply ask that you give it a try," he continues. "And when you do please give us feedback, we’d love to hear about your experience."

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This article originally ran on InnovationMap.

Soon, you'll be able to cruise to your destination without a driver in Houston. Photo via Cruise/Facebook

Self-driving rideshare company cruises its robotaxies into Houston

LOOK MA, NO DRIVER

A new driverless ridehail service is coming to Houston: Cruise, the all-electric, driverless car company backed by GM, is expanding in Texas with launches in both Dallas and the Bayou City.

This follows an initial launch in Austin in 2022, their first city in Texas.

Cruise builds and operates driverless vehicles that you can call via an app, like any other ride hailing service. "But our vehicles show up without anyone else inside," they say.

The entire fleet is all-electric and the vehicles are equipped with a 360-view, with the ability to react to whatever they encounter on the road.

They test their vehicles using simulations, through millions of scenarios and virtual miles; they’ve also driven more than 4 million real miles, mostly in San Francisco.

They have not defined what the cost will be but according to The Verge, the rates in San Francisco vary depending on length of trip and time of day: "A customer taking a 1.3-mile trip would pay 90 cents per mile and 40 cents per minute, in addition to a $5 base fee and 1.5 percent city tax, for a total of $8.72." By comparison, an Uber ride for the same trip would cost at least $10.41.

The company was founded in 2013 and vehicles began to hit the road in 2022. They operate a total fleet of roughly 300 all-electric AVs, powered 100 percent by renewable energy. In addition to Austin, they operate in San Francisco and Phoenix, where they've completed 35,000 self-driving deliveries in a partnership with Walmart.

According to a statement from CEO Kyle Vogt, they'll begin supervised driving (with a safety driver behind the wheel) in Houston as they finetune their AI technology to understand the nuances and unique elements of the city, with Dallas to follow shortly after.

In a blog post, Vogt says their cars drive the speed limit and come to a complete stop at every stop sign. They respond to police sirens, flashing lights on fire trucks or ambulances, and stop signs that fold out of school buses.

They react to people on scooters, people using bike lanes, and cars driving on the wrong side of the road. "In short, they are designed to drive safely by obeying the law and driving in a humanlike way," he says. Actually, that sounds better than humans.

When vehicles encounter a situation where they aren’t 100 percent sure of what to do, they slow down or stop and pull over to the side of the road. This has caused some bumps in San Francisco where cars stopped and idled in the street for no apparent reason, delaying bus riders and disrupting the work of firefighters.

Some of the "bumps" have been comical, such as the 2022 incident in which a confused San Francisco police officer pulled a Cruise over, and then the Cruise drove away.

And as Reuters notes, autonomous vehicles have not rolled out as fast as anticipated, due to regulations, safety investigations, and arduous technology.

When Cruise first enters a city, they hire a mapping and data collection team to learn bike lanes, school zones, and major intersections. But most of the time, the vehicles will be carrying riders in the back seat, or completely empty and en route to another pickup.

The company partners with first responders, including police and fire departments, to ensure they’re ready and familiar with how to interact with the vehicles, engaging with those agencies before and after launch.

"Our guiding mission has always been to improve road safety, reduce emissions, and reduce congestion with our driverless ride-hail service in cities, which is where we’ll see the most significant positive impact the soonest," Vogt says. "Houston and Dallas are committed to reducing traffic deaths as part of their Vision Zero commitments, and we are excited to operate in and partner with these new communities in this shared mission."

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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ExxonMobil names new partner to bolster US lithium supply chain with offtake agreement

ev supplies en route

Spring-headquartered ExxonMobil Corp. has announced a new MOU for an offtake agreement for up to 100,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate.

The agreement is with LG Chem, which is building its cathode plant in Tennessee and expects it to be the largest of its kind in the country. The project broke ground a year ago and expects an annual production capacity of 60,000 tons. The lithium will be supplied by ExxonMobil.

“America needs secure domestic supply of critical minerals like lithium,” Dan Ammann, president of ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions, says in a news release. “ExxonMobil is proud to lead the way in establishing domestic lithium production, creating jobs, driving economic growth, and enhancing energy security here in the United States.”

The industry currently has a lithium supply shortage due to the material's use in electric vehicle batteries and the fact that most of production happens overseas.

“Building a lithium supply chain with ExxonMobil, one of the world’s largest energy companies, holds great significance,” Shin Hak-cheol, CEO of LG Chem, adds. “We will continue to strengthen LG Chem’s competitiveness in the global supply chain for critical minerals.”

Per the release, the final investment decision is still pending.

Earlier this year, Exxon entered into another energy transition partnership, teaming up with Japan’s Mitsubishi to potentially produce low-carbon ammonia and nearly carbon-free hydrogen at ExxonMobil’s facility in Baytown.

Last month, the company announced it had signed the biggest offshore carbon dioxide storage lease in the U.S. ExxonMobil says the more than 271,000-acre site, being leased from the Texas General Land Office, complements the onshore CO2 storage portfolio that it’s assembling.

3 Houstonians named to prestigious list of climate leaders

who's who

Three Houston executives — Andrew Chang, Tim Latimer, and Cindy Taff — have been named to Time magazine’s prestigious list of the 100 Most Influential Climate Leaders in Business for 2024.

As managing director of United Airlines Ventures, Chang is striving to reduce the airline’s emissions by promoting the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Jets contribute to about two percent of global emissions, according to the International Energy Agency.

In 2023, Chang guided the launch of the Sustainable Flight Fund, which invests in climate-enhancing innovations for the airline sector. The fund aims to boost production of SAF and make it an affordable alternative fuel, Time says.

Chang tells Time that he’d like to see passage of climate legislation that would elevate the renewable energy sector.

“One of the most crucial legislative actions we could see in the next year is a focus on faster permitting processes for renewable energy projects,” Chang says. “This, coupled with speeding up the interconnection queue for renewable assets, would significantly reduce the time it takes for clean energy to come online.”

At Fervo Energy, Latimer, who’s co-founder and CEO, is leading efforts to make geothermal power “a viable alternative to fossil fuels,” says Time.

Fervo recently received government approval for a geothermal power project in Utah that the company indicates could power two million homes. In addition, Fervo has teamed up with Google to power the tech giant’s energy-gobbling data centers.

In an interview with Time, Latimer echoes Chang in expressing a need for reforms in the clean energy industry.

“Addressing climate change is going to require us to build an unprecedented amount of infrastructure so we can replace the current fossil fuel-dominated systems with cleaner solutions,” says Latimer. “Right now, many of the solutions we need are stalled out by a convoluted permitting and regulatory system that doesn’t prioritize clean infrastructure.”

Taff, CEO of geothermal energy provider Sage Geosystems, oversees her company’s work to connect what could be the world’s first geopressured geothermal storage to the electric grid, according to Time. In August, Sage announced a deal with Facebook owner Meta to produce 150 megawatts of geothermal energy for the tech company’s data centers.

Asked which climate solution, other than geothermal, deserves more attention or funding, Taff cites pumped storage hydropower.

“While lithium-ion batteries get a lot of the spotlight, pumped storage hydropower offers long-duration energy storage that can provide stability to the grid for days, not just hours,” Taff tells Time. “By storing excess energy during times of low demand and releasing it when renewables like solar and wind are not producing, it can play a critical role in balancing the intermittent nature of renewables. Investing in pumped storage hydropower infrastructure could be a game-changer in achieving a reliable, clean energy future.”

Rice University researchers pioneer climatetech breakthroughs in clean water nanotechnology

tapping in

Researchers at Rice University are making cleaner water through the use of nanotech.

Decades of research have culminated in the creation of the Water Technologies Entrepreneurship and Research (WaTER) Institute launched in January 2024 and its new Rice PFAS Alternatives and Remediation Center (R-PARC).

“Access to safe drinking water is a major limiting factor to human capacity, and providing access to clean water has the potential to save more lives than doctors,” Rice’s George R. Brown Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Pedro Alvarez says in a news release.

The WaTER Institute has made advancements in clean water technology research and applications established during a 10-year period of Nanotechnology Enabled Water Treatment (NEWT), which was funded by the National Science Foundation. R-PARC will use the institutional investments, which include an array of PFAS-dedicated advanced analytical equipment.

Alvarez currently serves as director of NEWT and the WaTER Institute. He’s joined by researchers that include Michael Wong, Rice’s Tina and Sunit Patel Professor in Molecular Nanotechnology, chair and professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and leader of the WaTER Institute’s public health research thrust, and James Tour, Rice’s T.T. and W.F. Chao Professor of Chemistry and professor of materials science and nanoengineering.

“We are the leaders in water technologies using nano,” adds Wong. “Things that we’ve discovered within the NEWT Center, we’ve already started to realize will be great for real-world applications.”

The NEWT center plans to equip over 200 students to address water safety issues, and assist/launch startups.

“Across the world, we’re seeing more serious contamination by emerging chemical and biological pollutants, and climate change is exacerbating freshwater scarcity with more frequent droughts and uncertainty about water resources,” Alvarez said in a news release. “The Rice WaTER Institute is growing research and alliances in the water domain that were built by our NEWT Center.”

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