Embark Trucks, an autonomous truck manufacturer, has announced plans to shut down two of its offices in SoCal and Houston and lay off 70% of its workforce (about 230 employees). The company has announced in an email to its employees that the remaining 30% of the workforce will focus on winding down operations.   

Embark, with its board’s approval, is in the process of evaluating strategic alternatives available to the company. The alternatives include alternative uses of Embark’s assets to commercialize its technology, additional sources of financing, and dissolution or liquidation of the company’s assets.

Analyst QuickTake : The current economic landscape has forced several other players in the autonomous trucking space to adopt similar measures. In fact, Waymo, the self-driving tech development unit of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, announced a second round of layoffs earlier this month and is also rumored to abandon its autonomous trucking business, Waymo Via. Meanwhile, Embark’s rivals TuSimple and Aurora Innovation , are following suit amid worsening market conditions; the former laid off 25% of its workforce as a part of a restructuring plan in December, and the latter is reportedly considering strategic actions, including the sale of the company.