Autonomy pivots to gas vehicles to keep the dream of car subscriptions alive

Four years ago, California startup Autonomy pledged to buy 23,000 EVs from 17 automakers, including Tesla, and make them available as part of a vehicle subscription service. It was a combination of two trends that had taken off in the early 2020s.

It didn’t work out.

Within a year, Autonomy was almost out of business, largely due to an EV price war started by Elon Musk, who was trying to keep Tesla competitive against a rush of new electric vehicles. Autonomy’s fleet, which had barely grown past 1,000 vehicles, lost around a third of its value. Founder Scott Painter (who also created TrueCar) had to more or less bail out the company while major automakers abandoned their own plans for vehicle subscriptions.

The startup has stayed alive, however, and it hasn’t given up on vehicle subscriptions. Instead, Autonomy said on Wednesday that it is adding internal combustion engine...

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