The Station: Cruise cuts, Waymo snags more cash, and a VC Mobility survey

This is the company’s first-ever funding after scaling up as a bootstrapped startup to support more than 60 million deliveries per year.VanMoof, the Dutch e-bike startup that launched in 2009, raised $13.5 million from London VC Balderton Capital and SINBON Electronics, the Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer that is its bike assembly partner.If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it’s how complex and sensitive our supply chain is. Amid the furloughs and layoffs, there has also been some executive reshuffling.A few layoffs and executive moves stood out this week, namely cuts at Cruise and Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s decision to put the head of paint operations in charge of all production at the company’s factory in Fremont, California.Let’s dig in.On the same day that Musk defied local regulations and said he would reopen Tesla’s factory in Fremont, California, the CEO put a new person in charge of production.Musk named Richard Miller, who was director of paint operations at Tesla, to head production at the factory, according to an internal email sent to employees and viewed by TechCrunch. Stewart confirmed in an interview that Fair is working on raising another round of funding that will include both equity and debt to push ahead on its business now focused squarely on car subscriptions for consumers.As Harley-Davidson rounds year one on its electric debut, we’re still riding in the fog on how to evaluate the company’s EV pivot, according to TechCrunch reporter Jake Bright.The American symbol of gas, chrome and steel released its first production electric motorcycle, the LiveWire, in September 2019, but still hasn’t offered sales data. The LiveWire is supposed to lead a future line-up of EVs planned by Harley-Davidson — spanning motorcycles, bicycles and scooters.The company saw a decline in sales and continued losses in its first quarter financials, but “remains committed to advancing our efforts in electric,” HD’s new CEO, Jochen Zeitz, said.Another component to grading Harley Davidson’s foray into electric is seeing the follow on products to the $29K LiveWire, which was priced too high for the millennial market. “The company needs to release EV-specific sales data and tell us what’s next in its voltage-powered lineup,” Bright wrote in this feature on Harley Davidson’s electric ambitions and the e-motorcycle market.Here’s some other stuff that got my attention.Of course, I’ll kick it off this must-read list with a survey we conducted with seven venture capitalists, including Ernestine Fu of Alsop Louie Partners, Stonly Baptiste & Shaun Abrahamson from Urban.us, Rob Coneybeer with Shasta Ventures, Shahin Farshchi of Lux Capital, Kate Schox with Trucks VC and Jeff Peters from Autotech Ventures.We asked these VCs their thoughts and advice for mobility startups in this COVDI-19 era.7 top mobility VCs discuss COVID-19 strategies and trendsNew York City celebrated its longest stretch of days without a pedestrian death in decades, The Hill reported.Greentech Media interviewed McDonald’s former global product director, James Wehner, about his plans to shake up EV charging in his new role as chief technology officer at Engenie, the U.K.-based charging specialist.Self-driving vehicle startup Aurora released a blog post explaining its process for rapidly converting on-road events into virtual tests.Tesla plans to unveil new advanced battery technology it has developed that can produce power sources for its EVs which last for “millions of miles” and can be produced at low costs, Reuters reported.Argo AI, the autonomous vehicle technology startup backed by Ford and Volkswagen, has developed a return-to-the road playbook.