| Last week, autonomous trucking company TuSimple received a delisting notice from the Nasdaq for failure to file its quarterly earnings report for Q4. The company is appealing the decision and is awaiting a hearing. TuSimple's shares fell below the $1 mark on May 11 but recovered to $1.25 by Wednesday morning. The company, which went public via a traditional initial public offering that raised $1.3B in April 2021, is far from its peak share price of $71.24 in June 2021. While the company has struggled to perform in the market, the roadblocks do not appear to be strictly related to its technology and go-to-market but have more to do with internal conflicts and external investigations.
 TuSimple has seen its share of troubles. CEO Cheng Lu resigned in March 2022 but returned to the role after his successor, Xiaodi Hou, was fired in the wake of an internal probe that found the company was sharing confidential information with Chinese company Hydron, which was led by TuSimple co-founder Mo Chen. The situation also was the subject of investigations by the FBI, the SEC, and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS). There were also accusations of Hydron poaching staff from TuSimple. Hou, however, said the allegations were retaliation over disagreements in relation to his compensation package and that he resigned over the company's shift in focus from Level 4 autonomy to Level 2. Originally backed by Chinese companies Sina (which runs the Weibo micro-blogging platform) and Composite Capital, TuSimple established its headquarters in San Diego in 2015. After filing its S1 in 2019, the CFIUS determined that the company would be required to offload its Chinese stake (at the time, Sina was its largest shareholder with 20%). By its IPO, TuSimple had secured funding from Volkswagen, Goodyear, The Traton Group, Navistar, and U.S. Xpress.
 Unlike other Chinese-backed companies working on autonomous driving that established labs in California, such as Pony.ai, WeRide.ai, and AutoX, TuSimple had 50 Level 4 semi-trucks operating in the U.S. by 2021. In 2022, the company was able to haul commercial goods over 300 km (186.4 miles) in normal traffic conditions using its autonomous driving system. By mid-March 2023, TuSimple announced its trucks had surpassed 10 million cumulative miles, including testing and freight delivery. In Q3 2022, the company reached 1,212,000 quarterly revenue miles, constituting a 4% growth from the previous quarter; however, its total truck reservations remained flat QoQ at 7,485. In terms of revenue, TuSimple generated $2.7M in its latest quarterly report (Q3 2022), comprising an increase of 4% YoY, which the company attributes to improved utilization. The company also spent $85.7M on R&D and $4.8M on property and equipment.
Last week, TuSimple hired UHY LLP as its new independent auditor as it seeks to comply with the required financial forms to remain publicly listed and re-focus on the business. |
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