EV owners in Texas face $200 annual feeStates have taxed motorists at the pump for more than a century. Yet, as electric cars gain ground, what happens when folks stop refueling altogether?
State lawmakers are increasingly imposing annual fees on EV owners, arguing they should pay up because they still rely on public infrastructure to get around. Texas is on track to become the latest state to levy such a tax, following more than a dozen others, including Georgia, Michigan and Ohio.
The Texas Senate passed SB 505 at the end of March. This week, the state’s House has cleared a similar bill, sending it on to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk. The latest version of the bill lays out a $200 yearly registration fee for electric vehicles, with exceptions carved out for slow “Neighborhood Electric Vehicles,” such as autocycles, mopeds and motorcycles. The bill states that the resulting fees “must be deposited to the credit of the state highway fund.”
Though Texas is certainly not alone in moving forward with such a bill, its $200 fee is on the high end, matching only Georgia. Colorado is the state with the lowest EV fee (excluding states that have no fees), at $50 per year.
Speaking against the bill in a statement to local media outlet KRLD, Environment Texas director Luke Metzger argued the $200 fee is punitive and “will make it harder for Texans to afford these clean vehicles which are so critical to reducing air pollution in Texas.”
Electric cars are still priced out of reach for many Americans. In September 2022, the average price for EVs sat at $65,291, versus $48,094 for gas guzzlers, per Cox Automotive.
EV owners in Texas face $200 annual fee by Harri Weber originally published on TechCrunch

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Hawai'i Songwriting Festival Coming in JuneRegistration for the Hawaii Songwriting Festival is now open! Join us June 8-10 at The Westin Hapuna Beach Resort on the beautiful Big Island of Hawai'i!! If you are a songwriter looking to connect with a community of creative souls in one of the most beautiful places in the world, this is for you! Book your hotel room before May 5th to get the discounted group rate.

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Clubhouse needs to fix things, and today it cut more than half of staffClubhouse, a once skyrocketing social audio app built by Paul Davison and Rohan Seth, has laid off more than half of its staff. The startup’s co-founders made the decision in response to customer habits changing in a post-COVID world and remote work complexities, according to a blog post.
Those who were impacted will receive severance and continued healthcare coverage for the next few months. A spokesperson for Clubhouse declined to comment on the number of people impacted by today’s workforce reduction or the number of employees who remain at the company. Last October, Davison told TechCrunch that Clubhouse had close to 100 employees.
Layoffs come under a year since the company last laid off a portion of staff as part of another restructuring. The company then told TechCrunch that “a few individuals have decided to pursue new opportunities and a handful of roles were eliminated as part of streamlining our team. We are continuing to recruit for roles in engineering, product and design.”
The social app, backed with more than $100 million in venture capital and once valued at $4 billion by investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Tiger Global and Elad Gill, took a different tone in today’s larger layoff.
“As the world has opened up post-Covid, it’s become harder for many people to find their friends on Clubhouse and to fit long conversations into their daily lives. To find its role in the world, the product needs to evolve,” the co-founders wrote in a blog post. They went on to write that the business has tried to change with its current team size but has been unable to due to the size of the team. “It’s difficult for us to communicate the strategy to cross-functional teams when it’s evolving by 1% each day, or to make quick changes when each surface is owned by a different product squad. Being remote has made this especially challenging for us.”
Unlike many entrepreneurs, the co-founders did not cite the economy when announcing the layoffs. Instead, Clubhouse seems to be responding to complexities that arise from overhearing and a remote work environment, both in running a business internally, and building something people want externally.
“Our belief is that as the world opens up, a couple things will happen: there will be more of an acute need to have a place where you can go and be among friends and meet their friends and have great conversations. I also think that an audio product is designed to be hands-free, designed so that you can multitask…I think the trends we’re building toward are permanent,” Davison shared on stage last year at TC Disrupt, offering a window into his product philosophy around social audio and remote work.
On stage he also responded to the ongoing critique and scrutiny around Clubhouse’s fall from hype. “The nice thing about having done this a few times before is that you tend not to get caught up in your own hype. When things are going like gangbusters, you sort of say that’s gonna come down when, when things are hard, you say we’re going to figure this out.”
Going forward, Clubhouse’s smaller team will be focused on building “Clubhouse 2.0.”
“As remote living, empty scrolling and Zoom meetings become more common, this is truer than ever. We have a clear vision for what Clubhouse 2.0 looks like and we believe that with a smaller, leaner team we will be able to iterate faster on the details, build the right product and honor our teammates who helped us get here,” today’s blog post says. TechCrunch reached out to a number of Clubhouse’s investors and many expressed not yet knowing what the remaining team there is cooking up. Last year, Davison mentioned the movement of Clubhouse activity away from “live podcast” and broadcasting behavior and into private rooms, intimidate internal conversations.
The business still has time to offer further answers. Clubhouse did confirm that it has “years of runway left” and now has more as a result of today’s layoffs. The company is not enacting a hiring freeze as of yet, a spokesperson said.

The impact of hype with Clubhouse’s Paul Davison

Those with knowledge about Clubhouse can reach Natasha Mascarenhas on Twitter @nmasc_ or on Signal at +1 925 271 0912. Anonymity requests will be respected.  
Clubhouse needs to fix things, and today it cut more than half of staff by Natasha Mascarenhas originally published on TechCrunch

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Triller to pay Sony Music $4.57m as video platform admits liability for breached licensing dealSony says: "Prompt entry of judgment is needed to protect against any further dissipation of Triller’s assets or, worse still, a bankruptcy filing."
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