Just two years ago, Monarch Tractor was worth half a billion dollars and ready to shake up the wine industry. In April, it shut its headquarters, laid off its employees and sold its technology to a competitor.

The wine-country startup wanted to revolutionize the cultivation of grapes and other fruit with $100,000 robotractors, but the technology didn’t work well enough. At a time when Waymo’s impressive success and the advent of AI have rekindled excitement about everything driverless, Monarch’s failure to disrupt has become another cautionary tale about massive bets on the latest tech.

The driver optional, battery-powered tractors — built skinny enough to fit in the narrow lanes between the rows of grapevines near its headquarters in Livermore — were going to make it easier and cheaper to handle pests, irrigation and harvesting. They were supposed to use cameras and sensors to collect data, learn what works best and then share that learning online with thousands of other high-tech tractors.

On the back of hopes it could save farmers hundreds of thousands of dollars, the Monarch tractor made Time magazine’s list of the year’s best inventions in 2023. That same year, Monarch was on a Forbes list of startups most likely to reach a $1-billion valuation. It made it halfway there the following year.

“Every farmer around the world is under tremendous pressure because of a lack of labor,” Monarch Chief Executive Praveen Penmetsa told Forbes in 2023, projecting hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. “We are the only all-electric, smart, driver-optional tractor in the world that farmers can buy today.”

But just as the technology seemed poised to move from moonshot to mainstream, customer complaints started coming in.

Patrick O’Connor, who runs Moonvine Wines, an organic vineyard near the Sierra Foothills wine region, was one of the first users and said the tractors too often went rogue, veering off straight paths and damaging his vines.

“It totally failed,” O’Connor said in an Instagram video. “While I was excited to eliminate diesel, run off my solar panels and embrace new technology, it just did not perform. It was actually quite dangerous.”

The potentially world-changing technology wasn’t working as designed. Meanwhile, Monarch hit a wall when its manufacturer — the same company that makes most iPhones — had to stop making the tractors.

“Building and scaling a new tractor platform in agriculture came with unforeseen challenges,” the company said in a statement in April.

Monarch and its founders did not respond to requests for comments.

The company was launched in 2018 with a promising pedigree.

Its founding team included Tesla veteran Mark Schwager and Napa Valley wine scion Carlo Mondavi, the grandson of Napa legend Robert Mondavi.

Penmetsa, the chief executive, had worked for years in the automotive and EV industries, largely in and around Los Angeles.

The company set out with the ambitious goal of bringing battery power, data collection and driverless technology to tractors. If it could pull it off, it could change farming around the world.

The Californian wine industry has been struggling with rising competition and dwindling demand, which could have nudged more farmers to try to save money using Monarch’s technology. It also could have made farmers more cautious about using unproven and expensive new technology.

Monarch may have aimed too high, industry insiders said.

While Monarch was trying to solve two problems at once — making its tractor both electric and autonomous — it didn’t spend enough time thinking about farmers’ needs, said Walter Duflock, vice president of innovation for the Western Growers Assn. Duflock owns San Bernardo Rancho, a fifth-generation family ranch in south Monterey County.

“The electric tractor has struggled to find a use case on the farm,” Duflock said in an interview. “They never got to the point where their electric vehicle was solving a fundamental problem.”

On Duflock’s ranch and many other California farms, there’s little to no charging infrastructure, he said. Even if infrastructure was developed, the time it takes to charge an electric tractor is too long for most farmers who can’t have downtime during busy seasons.

“The notion of sitting there waiting for a charging tractor to finish getting charged just doesn’t fit,” Duflock said.

Duflock heard that the Monarch tractor “would bump into stuff, it would not stop fast enough,” he said. “It just did not work.”

Monarch’s collapse was gradual. In July 2024, the company laid off 15% of its workforce, followed by another round of layoffs in November that year that affected around 35 employees, or 10% of its workforce. A year later, the company warned employees it could lay off 100 workers or even “shut down” in a company-wide memo obtained by TechCrunch.

In November 2025, Monarch Tractor was sued by the Idaho-based dealership Burks Tractor, which accused Monarch of misrepresenting its autonomous technology.

Burks Tractor paid Monarch more than $770,000 for 10 tractors.

“Upon receiving the tractors, Burks Tractor discovered that the tractors did not perform as represented and were unable to operate autonomously,” the complaint said.

A Burks Tractor manager declined to comment due to the ongoing litigation.

Monarch’s vehicles were supposed to be manufactured at a facility in Ohio owned by Foxconn, a Taiwanese electronics company known for assembling iPhones. Foxconn sold the factory in August 2025, shutting down Monarch’s plans there.

In April, Monarch sold the technology it had spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing to construction giant Caterpillar, for an undisclosed amount.

“It means the technology will continue to move forward,” with another company, Monarch said in a LinkedIn post at the time. “Thank you to our employees, investors and customers for being a part of this journey.”

Caterpillar did not respond to requests for comment.

Other companies are plowing forward where Monarch has failed.

For example, farm equipment company John Deere has had more success marketing and selling autonomous farm equipment. It has taken a different approach, gradually incorporating autonomous technology into its existing products. The company’s 8R tractor can operate autonomously while being controlled by a smartphone and has been deployed at large-scale commodity farms growing corn, soy and wheat.

Organic vineyard owner O’Connor still uses his Monarch tractor, but only as a battery and to cut wood with an attachment he has added.

Steven Spielberg’s latest sci-fi thriller, “Disclosure Day,” topped the box office this weekend, an encouraging sign for what could be a big summer for theaters.

The film, which stars Emily Blunt and Josh O’Connor, brought in $44 million in the U.S. and Canada for a worldwide total of $92.9 million, according to studio estimates. The opening weekend totals beat box office analysts’ expectations of about $40 million to $50 million.

“Disclosure Day” is Spielberg’s latest alien-centric movie that charts a desperate race to show the world the truth about extraterrestrials.

The film, which had a production budget of about $115 million, was also scored by legendary composer and longtime Spielberg collaborator John Williams, who is now 94 years old.

Spielberg described the film in April as “way closer to truth than fiction” during a speech at the CinemaCon trade convention in Las Vegas. The veteran director of 1977’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” 1982’s “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” and 2005’s “War of the Worlds” said at the time that he’s been curious about “what’s going on in the night” since he was a child and “been very fixated on the possibilities.”

Focus Features’ “Obsession” came in second at the box office with a domestic haul of $19 million, a continuation of the film’s strong run in theaters.

“Scary Movie,” “Backrooms” and “Masters of the Universe” rounded out the top five at the box office.

Recent box office performance — particularly with Gen Z hits “Obsession” and A24’s “Backrooms” — along with a slate of upcoming blockbuster franchise installments has buoyed the hopes of exhibitors and studio executives for a strong summer.

Next week, Walt Disney Co. and Pixar will release “Toy Story 5,” while Warner Bros.’ DC Studios has “Supergirl” landing in late June.

Universal Pictures and Illumination’s “Minions & Monsters,” Disney’s live-action “Moana,” Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” and Sony Pictures’ “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” are all slated for July.

That steady cadence of new and different films is key for a healthy box office and a successful summer, said Daniel Loria, editorial director at the Box Office Co.

“We’re seeing that momentum come back on a weekend-by-weekend basis,” he said. “What we needed to get back to a healthy industry post-pandemic is consistency, and that’s the difference here in 2026.”

As inflation rates rise to their highest in years, Californians are again getting hit the hardest at the gas pumps, with a regular tank costing upwards of $100 at some stations in Los Angeles.

Inflation figures released this week show consumer and producer price rises at more than three-year highs, driven by the energy crisis stemming from the war with Iran.

Gasoline prices took the biggest bite out of consumer spending power, with prices up 41% in May from a year earlier.

While the national average for gasoline prices is a little above $4 per gallon, in California, it is near $6 per gallon. In a small number of gas stations in Los Angeles, it is even tipping toward $7.

When asked about inflation in the Oval Office on Wednesday, President Trump told reporters the numbers looked great.

“I love inflation,” Trump said. “The numbers are going to be phenomenal because what’s showing is that despite the fact that we’re in a war, the numbers are much lower than anticipated, and when we’re out of that war, the numbers will be at lower numbers than they were even before it started.”

Consumers aren’t feeling the love.

The Costco gas pumps in Inglewood were busy Thursday morning, with a constant flow of cars looking to save money on its relatively low per-gallon price of about $5.50.

Inglewood resident Eddin, who chose to not give his last name, said even though his Honda Civic isn’t a big gas guzzler, he has switched to using his girlfriend’s hybrid for longer trips.

“We just take her car now just because it’s more cost-effective,” he said as he filled his tank. “I wish there was more the government could be doing for not just gas prices, but for prices in general. It seems like prices have gone up for everything.”

The unforgiving prices at the pump are set to make everyone’s summer more expensive. After gas, the largest price rise for consumers was in airline tickets, which jumped 27%.

Even staying home doesn’t shelter shoppers — the beef they might want to put on their backyard barbecues is up 15%.

Virginia resident Mario, who also opted to not give his last name, got hit twice with the inflation tax as he left Los Angeles this week. He was paying more to refill his rental as he headed for a flight home, after having paid much more for the ticket than earlier in the year.

“All of the flights are way more expensive than they used to be,” he said as he paid almost $5.80 per gallon at the 76 on Century Boulevard near Los Angeles International Airport.

The average price for a gallon of gas is around $3.90 in Virginia.

While the surge in prices is happening around the world, gas costs more in California than almost anywhere else because of higher taxes, fees and cleaner-fuel requirements.

The state’s gas supply is also particularly vulnerable because it has lost much of its drilling and refining capacity in recent years, making it more dependent on fuel from other states and countries.

As gas prices continue to climb in L.A., locals are forced to adjust their lives to the price at the pump. For some, that includes cutting back on other necessities such as food, budgeting strictly to afford half a tank of gas a week and rethinking side hustles such as food delivery service.

Public transit has become a more favorable option for some — weekday commutes on the Metro increased by nearly 8% from January to May.

Recent reports have shown a decline in spending on expensive household goods, and credit card data show that both luxury and discount shoppers spent less than usual recently on lodging, groceries, clothes and theaters to accommodate a larger gas budget.

Another Inglewood native who opted to not give her last name, Liz, is putting off filling up her gas entirely because it is so expensive. Instead, she makes more frequent visits, putting a little gas in her car at a time.

“I have to budget and do half a tank now, and half a tank later, or ask for an advance on my paycheck just to get gas,” she said.

Most people at the pumps agreed: Something needs to change.

Wayne Faulkner is from Los Angeles but now lives in Indiana, where gas is about $3.50 per gallon. He complained as he filled up his rental at the LAX stand.

“Our gas situation is much better than here,” he said.