Image credits: Jay Janner / The Austin American-Statesman / Getty Images

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for the future of transportation and now, more than ever, the role AI is playing in it.

TechCrunch covered a couple of stories this week that illustrate the countervailing forces at play within the autonomous vehicle industry. The federal government is hitting the accelerator while state and local officials are pumping the brakes on autonomous vehicles. 

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration made a series of autonomous vehicle technology announcements designed to cut red tape and accelerate the development and deployment of this technology (my article describes many of its actions). The one that got the most attention was the agency’s decision to give Zoox a temporary exemption from eight federal motor vehicle safety standards, which will finally allow the company to charge customers for rides in its custom-built robotaxi.

The importance of this can’t be understated. This was one of the last remaining regulatory hurdles Zoox needed to clear before launching a commercial robotaxi service. And according to the company, paid rides are imminent. The company will start charging for rides in Las Vegas first.

Meanwhile, Waymo and other robotaxi operators are facing increased scrutiny over how their autonomous vehicles interact with emergency responders, a regulatory risk that’s becoming harder for the industry to shrug off. As I have noted before, San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie asked state regulators to bolster rules for autonomous vehicles nearly two weeks after Waymo robotaxis became immobile in heavy July 4 traffic, ran out of power, and blocked key streets, further compounding the gridlock.

This week, Rep. Kevin Mullin (D-Calif.) proposed a bill that would direct federal regulators to establish minimum national safety standards for autonomous vehicle operators. 

“We have seen disturbing, and frankly, an unacceptable number of incidents where autonomous vehicles inadvertently interfere with emergency responders,” Mullin said during the press conference, which Lurie also spoke at.

So here we are, a push forward, and nope, a pull back. And in the middle is the AV industry.

What do you think? Send me an email with your view at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com.

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Lucid has landed more Saudi money, this time from Prince Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud, a member of the Saudi royal family. The billionaire prince purchased a little more than 19 million shares, or about 5%, of Lucid Motors, according to a regulatory filing. 

Elon Musk’s tunneling startup The Boring Company is in talks to raise a $4 billion funding round at a valuation of $20 billion.

Terminal, a Toronto-based startup that provides telematics data infrastructure for the commercial fleet industry, raised $20 million in a Series A round led by Battery Ventures. New strategic investors Intact Private Capital and Penske, as well as returning backers Y Combinator and Wayfinder Ventures, also participated.

Notable reads and other tidbits

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Alaska Airlines CEO and president Ben Minicucci joined Lyft’s board of directors.

The nascent on-demand drone-delivery industry had a busy week. Walmart and Alphabet’s Wing drone delivery started service across Central Florida, and Flytrex announced a partnership with autonomic logistics platform Nash. But the biggest announcement was about DoorDash, which said it was building a drone delivery business, including its own aircraft, as part of an effort developed by its robotics and autonomy team. This will eventually operate within the company’s delivery app.

Ferrari might have received a lot of hate for its first all-electric vehicle, the Luce, but the criticism didn’t dampen sales. Ferrari hit this year’s sales target for the Luce in just two months.

Florida was awarded $200 million under the federal National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, but the money never made it to charging infrastructure for electric cars. Instead, the state is using the money to build 32 landing pads with charging stations for electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, or eVTOLs.  

London is shaping up to be the next robotaxi battleground. Baidu has started testing autonomous vehicles in London as part of its partnership with Lyft and Freenow, the taxi and multi-mobility app that the ride-hailing company now owns. The companies plan to invite the public to hail their robotaxis in 2027. Meanwhile, others are also preparing to launch. In April, Waymo began testing its autonomous vehicles with human safety operators in the city. Uber and its self-driving tech partner, Wayve, also announced plans to launch a robotaxi service in London this year.

Rivian spinoff Also will finally start delivering its first e-bikes to customers next week, after months of delays related to unspecified supply chain issues.

In yet another hint that a Tesla-SpaceX merger is imminent, the EV maker is considering selling off its China business ahead of a SpaceX merger, according to the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, Tesla hit a new milestone and built its 10 millionth EV.

Waymo robotaxis started to return to freeways, more than two months after the company stopped driving these high-speed roads over concerns about how its autonomous vehicles behaved near construction zones.

One more thing …

There was a time when this newsletter was chock-full of electric vehicle news, much of it centered on ambitious plans from U.S. automakers GM and Ford. Both companies ramped up spending and formed joint ventures to build battery and EV factories, in an effort to shift their portfolios to ones filled with electric cars, trucks, and SUVs. But as those plans have retreated, so has the talk. 

TechCrunch teamed up with Hudson Labs, a New York-based financial research firm, to analyze the last seven years of GM and Ford quarterly earnings calls and found that both companies are talking about EVs at a lower rate than they did before the pandemic.

The upshot: While GM and Ford still sell EVs and have new models in their product pipelines, their collective focus has shifted, and it shows in the data. Check out the story, which includes two interactive graphs.

Image credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for the future of transportation and now, more than ever, the role AI is playing in it.

Tesla kicked off earnings season — at least for this sector — and the shareholder letter, along with Elon Musk’s remarks during the conference call, provided some pretty incredible disclosures I imagine have some investors concerned, or at least puzzled. 

Tesla has backed off previous promises to reach “volume production” of the Cybercab, Tesla Semi, and Megapack 3 in 2026. And while the company has publicly touted expansions of its Tesla Robotaxi service into new cities in Florida and Texas, the quarter-over-quarter data shows a drop in paid robotaxi miles. 

Senior reporter Sean O’Kane took a closer look at a graph shared in Tesla’s shareholder letter.  At a passing glance, the chart appears to show steady growth in paid robotaxi rides between August 2025 and June 2026, O’Kane notes. But the numbers displayed are cumulative, and when broken down by quarter, they show that Tesla’s Robotaxi fleet of Model Y SUVs carrying paying passengers covered around 1.1 million miles in the first quarter. That fell to roughly 700,000 miles in the second quarter, a decline of about 36%.

Musk also disclosed during the call that Tesla needs to accumulate driving data specific to the Cybercab before it can put large numbers of the vehicles on the road. That isn’t terribly surprising; the Cybercab is new, after all. But the reason got my attention. He explained that Tesla has to accumulate miles using Cybercabs retrofitted with steering wheels and accelerator and braking pedals so it can calibrate to the Cybercab chassis.

This marks a change from the company’s previous claims. For years, Tesla has said its fleet of nearly 10 million customer cars has been collecting data that could be used to train its advanced driver-assistance system, Full Self-Driving (Supervised), and future robotaxis. Musk’s explanation suggests there is a misalignment between that fleet data and how it’s applied to the Cybercab.

On the financial front, Tesla’s Q2 earnings show a company plowing money into its next generation of products (CapEx has doubled, and the company is back in negative free cash flow territory). And even though revenue is up, the boost wasn’t enough to offset the cost of doing business. The company’s net income fell 5% year over year.

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Travis Kalanick burst back onto the robotics and mobility scene earlier this year with Atoms — a rebranded holding company atop his ghost kitchen project — and a deal to acquire Anthony Levandowski's industrial automation startup, Pronto. Now the Uber co-founder and former CEO has $1.7 billion in capital to play with. VC giant Andreessen Horowitz led the round with participation from Bain Capital, Fifth Wall, and Uber. Ben Horowitz will join the company’s board following the investment.

This may seem inconceivable for those who remember Kalanick’s resignation from Uber’s top leadership spot nearly a decade ago — and the string of scandals and lawsuits in the year leading up to his departure. What’s even more incredible is that Uber participated in the funding round. The Information reported Uber invested $100 million into Atoms; conversations I’ve had since confirm that figure and provided new information, including that the investment was made six months ago.  

Reminder: In 2016 and while Kalanick was CEO, Uber acquired Levandowski’s self-driving trucks startup Otto. Less than a year later, Levandowski’s former employer Waymo (Google self-driving project) sued Uber for trade secret theft. The companies settled on the fifth day of the trial. 

There is a lot of history, much of it messy, between Kalanick and Uber (not to mention Levandowski). But it appears the ride-hailing company is still willing to invest in them. 

So what is Atoms going to do with this capital? The details are vague, but a company email from Levandowski suggests that Pronto will be a big part of those plans. 

The email states that “Atoms is investing heavily in Industrial AI and physical automation applied to mining and transport.” And later, “Pronto is a core strategic priority for Atoms, and this round is designed to accelerate exactly what matters most to your operations: scaling practical, OEM-agnostic autonomy.”

Other deals that got my attention …

Einride, the Swedish electric and autonomous trucking company, agreed to acquire EV charging startup Flipturn in an all-stock deal worth $38 million.

IBM agreed to buy HRL Laboratories, a quantum computing research lab jointly owned by Boeing and General Motors. 

Sila, the battery materials startup, raised $300 million in a round led by Atreides Management and Sutter Hill Ventures with participation from 8VC, Bessemer Venture Partners, Matrix Partners, and funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. The money will be used to expand Sila’s factory in Washington state to produce enough anode material for more than 100,000 EVs.

Notable reads and other tidbits

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Aurora had some news this week that didn’t get a ton of attention, but probably should. The company launched its second-generation driverless trucks, which include new hardware that is smaller, as well as upgraded sensor-cleaning systems and extended range lidar — all of which is built for a million-mile service life. The initial fleet will be modest and used on its Dallas-to-Houston route. The fleet will eventually reach 200 driverless trucks by the end of the year and will be used to haul freight for customers like Hirschbach, Uber Freight, McLane, and Detmar, the company said. Importantly for Aurora, these trucks do not have a human observer in the cab.

Ford is turning to Apple for its next generation of EVs. Specifically, Ford is going to integrate Apple Maps navigation and mapping, using a new set of developer tools called MapKit for Automotive, into its new line of electric vehicles, starting with the $30,000 midsize truck in 2027. I asked Ford what this means for Google, which is an existing partner. A company spokesperson told me the Apple announcement “does not change the role of Google Automotive Services across our current and near-term production programs.”

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety released a study called “Rise of the machines: crash experiences of highly automated vehicles and human drivers.” The organization used a far more clickbaity headline (Waymo’s driverless cars crash less often than people) to direct folks to its work. Unfortunately, that headline misses part of the point. The study does provide evidence that Waymo’s current robotaxis have lower crash involvement rates than human drivers. “Overall, when including police-reportable crashes, Waymo’s crash rate was 68% lower than that of human drivers,” the study reads. It also, importantly, concludes that national-crash and vehicle-miles-traveled data collection for Level 4 vehicles “can be improved for more timely and accurate safety evaluations.” 

Mobileye founder and CEO Amnon Shashua plans to step down from the top leadership post after nearly three decades, just as the company pushes into robotaxis and humanoid robots.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will look into developing new requirements for automakers to ensure drivers and passengers can safely exit their vehicles — the result of a petition that asked the agency to open a safety defect investigation into the emergency mechanical door release design on 2022 Tesla Model 3 vehicles. To be clear, this doesn’t mean there will be new rules. 

Rivian has sued the U.S. government for a “full refund” on tariffs paid under President Trump’s “Liberation Day” taxes, which the Supreme Court later ruled unconstitutional. 

Two Volkswagen engineers were charged with securities fraud after allegedly profiting off of insider information related to the German automaker’s joint venture with Rivian. 

Waymo is having internal discussions over how to end its contract with Uber, the Financial Times reported. Close followers of this partnership might have read this, rolled their eyes, and said “DUH!” But there are some interesting details in here, including that Uber-Waymo contract that covers Atlanta and Austin ends in May 2028. Uber told TechCrunch that Waymo says it intends to launch its own app in Austin and Atlanta in January 2028.

WhatsApp is rolling out a suite of new features, including a revamped Apple CarPlay and Android Auto experience.

Image credits: Kirsten Korosec

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for the future of transportation and now, more than ever, how AI is playing a part.

Last week, I wrote about Uber and Waymo and how their partnership appears to be deteriorating. I predicted the two companies would end up on opposing sides of autonomous vehicle policy. That wasn’t a guess.

For the past several weeks, I’ve been talking to sources and digging through correspondence Uber sent to the D.C. Council, which is evaluating a proposed bill that would allow autonomous vehicles to operate in Washington, D.C.

What I found: Uber and Waymo are already on opposite sides of the proposal, sparring behind the scenes and in public. Uber has made a particularly interesting argument in its effort to shape the rules that govern autonomous vehicles.

Uber, which opposes the D.C. bill, argues it would displace for-hire human drivers and hand Waymo a de facto monopoly. Instead, it has lobbied for a system that would require robotaxis to operate on a ride-hailing network alongside human drivers.

Insiders tell me the "hybrid" approach has little chance of becoming law. But if it did, it would leave AV developers like Waymo with two suboptimal choices: either put their robotaxis on ride-hailing apps like Uber or employ human drivers alongside fleets of robotaxis that took years and hundreds of millions of dollars to develop.

A D.C. Council hearing on Monday drew representatives from Lyft, Tesla, Uber, and Waymo, along with dozens of disability rights and accessibility advocates, local business and industry groups, highway safety organizations, government officials, labor unions, and think tanks.

My takeaway — based on the public testimony and the calls and texts I received afterward — is that Waymo is one of the few companies that generally likes the bill. Much of the rest of the industry does not.

Tesla’s senior policy adviser, India Herdman, echoed concerns I've heard from multiple AV developers, including objections to the 180-day, 250,000-mile mandatory testing requirement; the $1 million application fee; the $5 million permit fee; and the $0.15-per-mile tax. Tesla, along with other companies, argued that testing miles accumulated in other jurisdictions should count toward the mileage threshold.

Waymo, which has been testing its AVs with human safety operators in Washington, D.C., has already surpassed the 180-day and 250,000-mile requirements. That means if the bill passed as written today, Waymo would enter the market with at least a six-month head start.

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Uber is considered a ride-hailing and delivery giant. It is now cementing that status through a $14.8 billion deal to acquire Germany’s Delivery Hero. 

If the deal closes — and it will absolutely take time to overcome the regulatory hurdles — Uber will get access to nearly 100 markets across Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia. The upshot: Uber’s delivery footprint will double.

Delivery Hero also made a separate agreement to sell its business in 14 markets, where Uber Eats is already operating, to New York-based investment firm SSW Partners for $1.6 billion.

Other deals that got my attention …

Self Inspection, a San Diego-based startup trying to disrupt the vehicle inspection process, raised $10 million in a round led by the family office of Sheryl Sandberg. Tire distributor U.S. AutoForce and automotive lender Westlake Financial made strategic investments. Early-stage funds Costanoa Ventures, Rebellion Ventures, and BrightCap Ventures also invested.

Senra, a startup modernizing how wire harnesses are made, raised $65 million in a Series B round co-led by Lowercarbon and Interlagos with participation from General Catalyst, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Founders Fund, among others.

Zepto, the Indian fast-delivery company, is seeking a valuation in an initial public offering well below its $7 billion peak, Bloomberg reported, citing anonymous sources.

Notable reads and other tidbits

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Chip Motors, a Miami-based startup, revealed a low-speed small EV designed for short errands and families, and with some automated driving capabilities.

The Los Angeles Police Department is reportedly ending its deal with Flock Safety, a surveillance company that helps law enforcement track vehicles using thousands of its license plate cameras placed across the United States.

Lucid Motors is pushing back — and hard — on a report that claimed the EV maker was weighing whether to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company’s comms team, its CEO, and a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission all say the same thing: The rumors are false. The initial report sent the company’s stock down more than 50% on Tuesday, its biggest intra-day drop ever. The stock has since recovered and is now trading about 28% higher than it was prior to the big drop. 

Lyft CEO David Risher says it’s the “Good Uber,” per Wired.

Manual, or standard, transmission vehicles are a dying breed, according to preliminary government data that shows just 0.6% of new vehicles made for the U.S. in 2025 had stick shifts, the Washington Post reported. I own two manual vehicles. Does that make me a driving unicorn?

The National Transportation Safety Board said the driver of a Tesla who crashed into a house in June had pressed the accelerator pedal to 100%, overriding the company’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software.

San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie has urged state regulators to toughen rules on autonomous vehicles after Waymo robotaxis became immobile in heavy July 4 traffic, ran out of power, and blocked key streets, further compounding the gridlock. In a letter (parts of which are excerpted here) Lurie outlined four core requirements he would like to see enacted to ensure robotaxi companies can “perform reliably” during extraordinary events. 

SpaceX abruptly aborted the second attempted launch of its upgraded Starship rocket system on Thursday, just moments after the booster ignited at the company’s complex in South Texas.

Zoox issued a software recall after one of its robotaxis got confused by smoke emitting from an emergency fire scene in June.

One more thing …

Uber chief product officer Sachin Kansal talks to TechCrunch EIC Connie Loizos about travel, AI agents, and playing both sides of the robotaxi race, in the latest Strictly VC podcast episode. If you’d rather read the interview, check out the Q&A.

image credits: Heather Diehl / Getty Images

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for the future of transportation and now, more than ever, how AI is playing a part.

I am back from vacation. What did I miss? Turns out, quite a lot — including the end of the Uber-Waymo partnership in Phoenix. Uber and Waymo still have robotaxi service partnerships in Atlanta and Austin. The question is not if, but when will these agreements end? But that isn’t the most intriguing question, in my opinion. I am far more intrigued by how these two companies will behave once the remaining partnerships end. 

There is already tension with Uber executives taking not-so-subtle shots at Waymo. I expect that once the partnerships end, these thinly veiled barbs will be replaced with more direct action. One battleground will be policy, specifically markets where robotaxi companies are angling to get access. 

This week, we saw another interesting development in the autonomous vehicle industry on the federal stage. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration administrator Jonathan Morrison issued a directive to autonomous vehicle developers, stating that it is unacceptable for their vehicles to interfere with first responders or law enforcement.

The money quote: “Let me be clear: the inability to detect and appropriately respond to such situations represents a functional insufficiency. Emergency scenes are not rare or extreme ‘edge cases.’ As such, NHTSA is today issuing a call to action for AV developers and operators to immediately focus their resources on fixing this issue.”

Morrison’s letter never calls out any one robotaxi company and it was sent to every AV developer listed in the Department of Transportation’s Standing General Order. But it sure seems like Morrison is directing the agency’s ire at Waymo.

A previous TechCrunch investigation found that Waymo — which operates the largest robotaxi fleet in the United States, with vehicles in cities such as Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco — has had repeated run-ins with first responders. And just this week, San Francisco supervisor Bilal Mahmood said he plans to submit a letter of inquiry to examine how autonomous vehicles affected public transit services and emergency responders following a July 4 fireworks show that resulted in massive gridlock. Local news outlets reported that numerous Waymo robotaxis had to be towed after running out of power during the lengthy traffic jam.

Morrison’s letter has gravitas. But will there be substantive consequences for AV developers? It’s hard to tell at this point. For now, the NHTSA has demanded companies present the agency with “solutions” by the end of the month.

One more news item from the feds. Take a look at the new 2026 Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda, which was updated last week. It contains a long list of proposed changes to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) requirements, which govern vehicle design and equipment requirements. These proposed changes could help autonomous vehicle companies like Tesla and Zoox, which are developing vehicles without steering wheels, pedals, or other features required on human-driven cars.

A little bird

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Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O'Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com. 

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We usually focus on venture deals, but this week I wanted to highlight Rivian and the sale of 86.25 million Class A common shares priced at $15.50 each (that includes an added 11.25 million in additional shares that underwriters opted to buy).

In all, Rivian said it expects to raise $1.32 billion in new capital. The raise comes at a notable time for the EV maker. The company started delivering its new R2 SUV last month and recently raised its sales forecast for 2026. The company said it now expects to deliver between 65,000 and 70,000 vehicles after outperforming its own expectations in the second quarter due to robust growth quarter-over-quarter in EDV and R1, coupled with the introduction of R2 deliveries. 

The company didn’t explain the reason for the raise. But as a reminder, Rivian is not yet profitable and scaling up production of the R2 — or any vehicle for that matter — isn’t cheap!

Other deals that got my attention …

Bidbus, a Los Angeles-based startup that built a digital marketplace where multiple dealers can bid on a car, raised $15 million in a Series A funding round led by Ibex Investors. Mucker Capital, FJ Labs, Motley Fool Ventures, Data Point Capital, Walter Ventures, and the Car Dealership Guy’s Yossi Levi also participated.

Lyft said it plans to acquire Serveo’s bike-share business in Spain. Terms weren’t disclosed, but the ride-hailing company said it is expected to close this year.

TaiSan, a U.K. battery startup, raised £4.65 million in a seed funding round co-led by Eos Advisory and the Midlands Engine Investment Fund II. InnoEnergy, AFI Ventures, EverQuest Capital Partners, Exergon, Heartfelt Ventures, Adeline Arts & Science, Techmind, angel investor François Badelon, and matched funding from Innovate UK also participated.

Notable reads and other tidbits

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AssuranceAmerica, a U.S. insurance provider, confirmed a data breach that affected the personal information and driver’s license numbers of 6.9 million people, making it the largest known spill of Americans’ driver’s license information this year.

Beta Technologies, the electric vehicle takeoff and landing developer, completed operational flights conducted under the U.S. Department of Transportation and Federal Aviation Administration’s new eVTOL Integration Pilot Program. The flights covered about 275 nautical miles covering Virginia and Maryland. 

Longtime followers of Tesla will remember the heady days when Elon Musk battled various short sellers of the company’s stock. Musk is more polarizing than ever, and one exchange-traded fund creator has found a way to tap into that negative sentiment with two new anti-Elon exchange-traded funds. 

GM brand Chevrolet built an all-American EV truck. Senior reporter Tim De Chant asks, Why is nobody buying it? 

Manna Aero, the Ireland-based autonomous drone delivery startup, is scaling up in the United States with a factory and operations center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that it says will employ 1,000 in the next few years. 

Slate Auto teamed up with Crayola to offer its EV truck and SUV customers vehicle wraps in five crayon colors. (Reminder: The basic Slate EV vehicle isn’t painted. Instead, it comes in a gray composite material that can be customized with a vehicle wrap. The company has hundreds of options to choose from.)

One more thing …

TechCrunch podcast Build Mode just launched its third season, and it’s a banger. Build Mode is hosted by Isabelle Johannessen, who heads TechCrunch's Startup Battlefield program. Unlike Equity — the TC podcast I co-host along with Anthony Ha and Sean O’Kane — Build Mode is designed to help early-stage founders. 

The new season kicks off with Precursor Ventures founder and managing partner Charles Hudson, who talks about what early-stage founders need to know before raising their first institutional round.

Check it out: The new rules of early-stage fundraising with Charles Hudson.

Tesla FSD in Spain on May 26, 2026. Image credits: Josep LAGO / AFP via Getty Images

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for the future of transportation and now, more than ever, how AI is playing a part.

A quick heads-up to readers: I will not publish an issue next week due to the July 4th holiday. I will see you all the following week. 

A series of stories this week highlight the continued — and apparently growing — scrutiny of Tesla’s automated driving system known as Full Self-Driving (Supervised). A fatal crash involving a Tesla that struck a home in Texas and killed a 76-year-old woman gained national attention after the driver told police that Autopilot — the company’s basic driver-assistance system, which has since been discontinued — was engaged at the time of the crash. 

Ashok Elluswamy, vice president of AI software at Tesla, shared a different account of the crash, claiming on X that the driver manually overrode “self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100% of the accel pedal in this residential area.”

His comments suggest the vehicle was equipped with FSD (Supervised), and not Autopilot, but without an independent investigation we don’t know for sure. But we might, eventually. 

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) have now opened investigations into the crash.

Meanwhile, Tesla settled a lawsuit connected to a fatal 2023 crash involving a vehicle using FSD (Supervised). This crash is part of a different NHTSA investigation into Tesla FSD focused on whether the system could “detect and respond appropriately to reduced roadway visibility conditions,” such as “sun glare, fog, or airborne dust.”

All of this attention comes as Tesla positions itself as an AI and robotics company. FSD (Supervised) is currently the most visible, revenue-generating product tied to that branding.

A little bird

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A reader who has shared tips with us before alerted me to a research report on Waymo and its growing fleet of Ojai robotaxis. For a refresher, Waymo struck a supplier deal with Zeekr, the brand owned by China’s Geely Holding Group, to provide it with an electric vehicle designed to operate as a robotaxi.

The minivan-like robotaxi was designed in Sweden and is manufactured in China. (These vehicles don’t contain any vehicle communication modules; current U.S. policy bans Chinese-connected vehicle technology.) Once it gets to the U.S., Waymo takes over and adds in its self-driving system. The Ojai is equipped with Waymo’s sixth-generation system — including 13 cameras, four lidar sensors, six radar units, and an array of external audio receivers.

The New York-based research firm MoffettNathanson did a bit of gumshoeing to figure out how serious Waymo’s Ojai program is. The firm examined Bill of Lading documents, which are detailed receipts of shipped goods that are filed with the U.S. government. The company counted Zeekr vehicle labels CM1e or CME, the company’s label for Waymo-bound vehicles. 

MoffettNathanson, which shared its report with TechCrunch, discovered that Waymo is on pace to import 3,156 vehicles into the U.S. this year, about 300 vehicles per month.

Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O'Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com.

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Aseon Labs, a Silicon Valley startup developing mobile pods that can autonomously inspect, clean, and charge robotaxis, raised $10 million in a seed round led by Crane Venture Partners. Other participants included Y Combinator, Uber co-founder Garrett Camp’s venture firm Expa, Robin Hood Ventures, and Founders Capital.

CaoCao and May Mobility, an autonomous vehicle technology startup, partnered to jointly explore commercializing robotaxi services in international markets, beginning with Europe.

Elroy Air, the autonomous heavy-cargo ‌drone startup, plans to go public through a merger with blank-check firm ​Columbus Circle Capital Corp II. The deal is valued at about $1 billion.

Partly, a company that creates AI tools for the automotive repair supply chain, raised $50 million in a Series B round led by DST Global Partners.

Spiro, an African electric vehicle and clean energy infrastructure platform, finalized a $55 million investment from NewTrails Capital, a Chinese growth-stage fund. 

Terawatt Infrastructure, a company that provides EV charging for fleets, including for Waymo and other autonomous and electric fleets, set up a five-year senior secured credit facility that could allow it to borrow as much as $300 million from banks. The proceeds will support the acquisition and development of charging depots, the company said. 

Notable reads and other tidbits

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Companies like Tesla and Zoox could get a boost from the U.S. Department of Transportation, which has proposed changes to federal vehicle regulations that would allow companies to skip the inclusion of brake pedals in “vehicles designed to be driven exclusively by automated driving systems.” 

Lucid Motors is laying off 18% of its workforce, or around 1,500 employees, and cutting the second shift of EV production at its factory in Casa Grande, Arizona. Reminder: The layoffs come just four months after the EV maker cut 12% of its staff. CEO Silvio Napoli said the cuts are part of an effort “to simplify the company, sharpen execution, and position Lucid to become more competitive over time.” In this pursuit to simplify, what will Lucid give up? 

Lyft CEO David Risher posted a blog that got my attention. In it, he laid out the company’s multi-sensor safety standard for autonomous rides. The upshot: Autonomous vehicles that use one type of sensor can’t go on the Lyft network. I reached out to the company and they confirmed what this seemed to imply — vehicles like the Tesla Cybercab and Tesla robotaxis that use FSD (Unsupervised) won’t qualify since they only use cameras. The rules don��t apply to advanced driver-assistance systems, by the way. So all of those humans who drive Tesla vehicles on the Lyft app are not affected.

OpenAI hired away Uber India president Prabhjeet Singh to be its first managing director.

Polestar, the Swedish electric vehicle manufacturer owned by Chinese automotive giant Geely, can no longer sell its new cars in the U.S. market. The imported vehicles are restricted by a U.S. government law that bans Chinese connected car technology. 

Samsara, the fleet management company, is rolling out business-card-sized sticky tracking labels to solve cargo theft. 

Slate Auto’s radically simple electric truck starts at $24,950. Would you pay $25K for a two-seater truck with a 205-mile range, hand-crank windows, no infotainment system, and gray composite material finish (owners can order customizable wraps for the vehicle)? Scroll down to take our poll. And climate tech reporter and in-house battery expert Tim De Chant explains why Slate changed the battery in its cheap EV truck. 

Uber is facing a lawsuit by shareholders that accuse the board and management of putting profits ahead of compliance and safety, decisions that have exposed the company and its shareholders to risk.

Waymo has set up an entity in Germany, which German news outlet Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung first reported. The company registration filing makes it pretty clear that it’s gearing up to launch a robotaxi service in the country. However, this doesn’t mean it’s imminent, insiders tell me. Meanwhile, Waymo has dropped its waitlist in Nashville, a move that opens up its service to the public. 

Zoox gave its custom-built robotaxis a makeover as it prepares for commercial service and larger-scale production at its Hayward, California, facility.

One more thing …

It’s polling time!

Image credits: Pedro PARDO / AFP

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation.

Today is Juneteenth, a U.S. federal holiday marking the end of slavery in the United States. 

About 10 years ago, there was a lot of chatter about who was winning the self-driving car race. One of the problems with that debate — besides assuming there would be just one winner — was that no one had a reliable way to measure it. This was an early era filled with a lot of demos and capital, but little substance — at least what the public, and folks like myself, had access to. 

Advisory and research startup Autnmy AI has developed a generative AI platform to create a benchmarking system that evaluates and ranks autonomous vehicle companies in an effort to answer that question in real time. And this week, the startup released its Road to Autonomy Index, which searches relevant global public databases, including federal and state reports, SEC documents, public exchanges, and other data. The system weighs the company’s operations, scale, revenue, commercial partnerships, manufacturing, and safety record based on that data and provides an update every 12 hours. There are four indices that rank robotaxis, autonomous driving licensing companies, autonomous trucks, and delivery bots.

One important note, per Autnmy AI co-founder Rob Grant, the AI platform doesn’t just scrape information off the internet. “We agreed early on, we don't scrape information,” he said. “If it's publicly available or if it's available under a Creative Commons license, we will use that information. We do have some license data that we pay folks for, and under that agreement too.”

The indices take a global approach, which produces some interesting results. One of the initial takeaways that made an impression on Grant was China’s stronger ranking across multiple categories.

As of Friday, the robotaxi leader was not Waymo. It was China’s Baidu Apollo Go program — just barely. Waymo was in the secondary position, followed by Chinese companies Pony.ai and WeRide. Tesla was in the fifth position. 

A little bird

Image credits: Bryce Durbin

I was reminded recently by a little bird to keep an eye on the Texas automated vehicle tracker tool that launched in May. And I am glad they did; looks like Tesla, Waymo, and  Zoox are building up their respective fleets in the state. Reminder: This doesn’t mean every one of these are being used commercially. Zoox, for instance, cannot operate commercially until it receives an exemption from the federal government. It currently has the ability to give rides in its custom-built robotaxi but cannot charge customers.

As of May 28, Waymo had 577 autonomous vehicles registered in the state. It now has 620 of them, about a 7.5% increase in less than a month. Tesla now has 69 registered autonomous vehicles, a 64% increase from the 42 it had on May 28. Zoox, which had 35 registered autonomous vehicles last month, now has 43.

Avride, Nuro, and Volkswagen subsidiary MOIA are holding steady at 317, 47, and 12, respectively. 

Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O'Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com.

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Cargofy, a logistics company that uses AI to automate freight operations, raised $11 million in a Series A funding round led by u.ventures, Toloka, and Movens Capital. Des Traynor, co-founder of Intercom, and several angel investors, also participated. 

Carro, the Singapore-based online car marketplace, acquired Australian used-car platform CarPlace, Reuters reported. Terms were not disclosed.

Gatik, a startup that has developed self-driving trucks for short hauls, announced a multi-year partnership with PepsiCo. The companies wouldn’t share the value of this deal, but it does signal PepsiCo’s commitment to Gatik, which is already operating driverless trucks for the food and beverage giant across Arkansas, Arizona, and Texas. 

QuantumScape announced a joint research agreement with Honda R&D Co. to accelerate solid-state battery development and associated manufacturing processes.

Automaker Stellantis, self-driving startup Wayve, and ride-hailing giant Uber struck a deal to jointly develop and deploy driverless robotaxis.

XDOF, a startup focused on robot training data, raised $70 million from Thrive Capital, Spark Capital, a16z, Lux, and WndrCo.

Notable reads and other tidbits

Image credits: Bryce Durbin

A video posted on Reddit showed a driver running a stop sign and hitting an autonomous vehicle in Dallas. TechCrunch confirmed it was an Avride robotaxi, which was hailed via the Uber app. An Avride spokesperson said no injuries were reported and that data from the incident is being reviewed “to continuously refine our technology and processes, as part of our standard procedures.” When asked about the reaction of the self-driving system and the human safety operator who was behind the wheel, Avride said, “Our safety review is currently ongoing, so we cannot provide more precise details at this time.”

Tesla owners in China have discovered a workaround to the vehicle’s distracted driving monitor: tiny plastic heads.  

Over on X, folks spotted a Tesla with an authorized limousine permit sticker for San Francisco County and the San Francisco International Airport. A spokesperson for SFO told TechCrunch that “Tesla has been issued a limousine permit to operate at SFO. This is for traditional limousine operations, meaning the vehicles have a human driver. Tesla has not been issued a permit for any autonomous operations at SFO.”

Mobileye, which has pitched itself as an autonomous vehicle technology supplier, is now making moves to become a robotaxi operator. The company plans to launch a robotaxi service in an unnamed U.S. city in 2027. History lesson: Mobileye founder and CEO Amnon Shashua told me back in 2020 that to crack the holy grail of passenger car autonomy, you needed to pursue robotaxis first.  

Uber plans to launch a premium robotaxi service in Houston by mid-2027, making it the second U.S. market under its partnership with EV maker Lucid and autonomous vehicle startup Nuro.

Waymo recalled its fleet of nearly 4,000 robotaxis to stop them from driving into highway construction zones. Waymo took its robotaxis off the freeways weeks ago and has identified at least 13 instances of its robotaxis driving into highway sections that were closed for construction. Here is a detail worth noting: The software fix is “under development,” which means this issue is not resolved.

Image credits: Spencer Platt / Getty Images

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for the future of transportation and now, more than ever, how AI is playing a part.

I won’t spend too much time rehashing the SpaceX IPO — every media outlet, including TechCrunch, has spilled enormous amounts of digital ink on the company’s first day of trading. But there are two important data points to note for anyone who closely watches the “future of transportation” industry.

As of market close Friday, SpaceX has a market cap of $2.1 trillion, rocketing past Musk’s other publicly traded company, Tesla. SpaceX is currently the sixth most valuable U.S.-listed company, behind Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon. Tesla’s market cap was $1.52 trillion as of market close.

These two companies could soon become one. There have been plenty of hints and speculation. Last week, senior reporter Sean O’Kane spotted new language in SpaceX’s S-1 document that warns investors of future dilution. The additional sentence reads, “We may issue a significant amount of equity in connection with future transactions.” This isn’t a forecast of some small-scale deal; it likely means Tesla.

On opening day, SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell added fuel to the speculative fire. During an interview with CNBC, Shotwell seemed open to the idea and said a merger “might make Elon’s life a little easier.”

And if you do want to read more, we have conveniently packed everything together in a single spot, including stories on who wins (Elon Musk) and who might not (lower-tier SPV investors).

A little bird

Image credits: Bryce Durbin

Senior reporter Tim De Chant heard from a little bird who is familiar with GM and its inner workings that a “foreign supplier” is providing lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) cells for the 2027 Chevrolet Bolt — and that the automaker currently has no plans to make LFPs for its EVs.

Previously, a Wall Street Journal report said the arrangement with the foreign supplier — identified as Chinese battery manufacturer CATL — was a temporary stopgap. De Chant heard that GM is starting production of LFP at an Ultium plant in the coming weeks, but those cells are destined for energy-storage systems made by LG Energy Solution. The automaker hasn’t yet decided whether LFP has a future in an EV beyond the Bolt.

Meanwhile, EV maker Lucid Motors is going through a bit of executive-level disruption. Emad Dlala, a top executive at Lucid, has left the company just months after being promoted to a leading role, TechCrunch has learned. Dlala’s exit is the first major executive departure since Lucid Motors named Silvio Napoli as its new CEO in April. And we hear there may be more coming.

Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O'Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com.

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We can officially say goodbye to the Apple car. Yeah, I know that special project was shut down in 2024. But now there is further proof that Apple has moved well beyond autonomous cars. 

After a tip and some document scouring, we found that Waymo acquired a massive 5,500-acre proving ground in Arizona owned by Route 14 Investment Partners LLC, a Delaware shell company associated with Apple. Waymo acquired the property for $220 million, according to the filing. 

The acquisition is the latest evidence that Waymo is trying to scale up its operations.

Other deals that got more attention …

CameraMatics, an Irish company that uses AI-powered video telematics to help make fleets safer, raised €49 million from a consortium led by U.K. investment firm Blume Equity, the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, and Goodbody Capital Partners.

Clear Robotics, an Indian tech company developing autonomous ships, raised a $1.75 million pre-Series A funding round led by maritime-focused Shipsfocus Ventures. Katapult Ocean, SGInnovate, M7 Holdings MGS Ventures, and other strategic partners also joined the round.

Evotrex, a startup developing hybrid RV travel trailers, raised $30 million in a Series A funding round. Funding came from a consortium of Chinese and Hong Kong-based investment firms, like GSR United Capital, Forebright Concerto Capital, TTGG Ventures, and Pegasus Capital, among others. Anker, the consumer electronics company, is among its seed investors.

Volteum, a startup that developed fleet management software for electric and mixed fleets, raised €2.5 million in a round led by Movens Capital. WakeUp Capital and Aidiom, as well as existing backers DayOne Capital, Techstars, and Nesprit also participated.

Zepto, the Indian quick-commerce delivery startup, unveiled plans for an initial public offering that could be valued at about $1 billion.

Zūm, a startup that provides transportation services (typically in electric buses) for school-age children, is interviewing banks about a possible IPO, The Information reported.

Notable reads and other tidbits

Image credits: Bryce Durbin

Decart, an AI startup, unveiled an interactive world model called Oasis 3 that can generate photorealistic driving environments in real time. The startup is initially targeting autonomous vehicle companies that need to simulate rare driving scenarios at scale and plans to expand into robotics and other physical AI applications, senior reporter Rebecca Bellan reported. 

General Motors is pushing deep into batteries — and not for EVs. We covered some of GM’s battery plans last week, but there is more to share. GM announced plans to sell a commercial energy-storage system for AI data centers and the grid. It is partnering with energy-storage startup Peak Energy and will be developing an entirely new sodium-ion battery chemistry tailored for grid-scale deployments. With GM and Ford chasing energy storage — plus a number of startups like Redwood Energy piling in — it seems like everyone wants a piece of Tesla’s battery business. 

Rivian started deliveries of its all-important R2 SUV.

Uber, U.K. startup Wayve, and Waymo are headed toward a robotaxi showdown in London. Here’s why. 

Waymo launched a loyalty program called Waymo Premier, which will offer frequent robotaxi riders a number of perks in exchange for $29.99 per month. The company also released details on a new computer model it created that is designed to more accurately answer a fundamental question: How does its autonomous driving software stack up against humans? 

Wing, the Alphabet-owned autonomous drones company, is pushing into seven more U.S. cities through its partnership with Walmart. Wing isn’t the only company using drones to autonomously deliver groceries, and while it’s certainly not mainstream yet, it isn’t a novelty anymore in certain markets.

One more thing …

Since the SpaceX IPO has just wrapped, I thought I would share some initial reactions from our TechCrunch staff. Senior reporter Sean O’Kane and AI editor Russell Brandom recorded a special episode of the Equity podcast Friday to give first impression. I suggest a listen!

The SpaceX IPO has finally arrived — here’s what TechCrunch editors think so far.

Image credits: GM

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation.

Senior reporter (and resident battery expert) Tim De Chant traveled to General Motors’ sprawling Warren Technical Center outside Detroit to learn more about the automaker’s plans to reduce the cost of its next slate of EVs. The upshot: GM is banking on LMR batteries and a new Battery Cell Development Center that is viewed as the bridge between its R&D efforts and full-scale production. 

Kurt Kelty, GM’s VP of battery and sustainability, provided fresh details about the company’s $900 million initiative and how this new chemistry will preserve range while slashing costs. For instance, the Chevrolet Silverado EV could be $6,000 cheaper. Read the story here.

As with most companies these days, AI also makes a cameo appearance. Although I should note that AI plays more than just a supporting role at GM. I recently interviewed Sterling Anderson, GM’s chief product officer, and Jason Fischer, who is executive director of virtual integration engineering, about some of the changes inside the company and how it’s using AI. That story is coming next week, but I’ll give you a bit of a teaser. 

GM is using a collection of outside AI models as well as ones it has created in-house that can be used across large swaths of the business and that — here’s the punchline — will speed up its vehicle development cycle. I’ll have more details in my article, and don’t worry, if you miss it, I will highlight it in next week’s newsletter. 

Finally, last week I wrote about the Ferrari Luce EV and how it doesn’t matter that it has been so widely criticized. I got some wonderful emails from you all on the topic — thanks! The poll, however, showed that as much coverage as the Luce received, many of you really don’t care about it. 

In the poll I asked, ‘Do you love it, hate it, or indifferent to it?’ Most of you, about 44%, are indifferent, while the remainder are equally split between love and hate. 

The more I think about the future of the Luce EV, the more I think this might become a ragebait purchase among those who can afford it and are deemed worthy by Ferrari to buy it.

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The looming SpaceX IPO is the deal of the decade, certainly for the bankers and for CEO Elon Musk. But it could also affect Tesla shareholders. 

As part of the IPO registration process, a company will often file numerous amendments before making its public markets debut. SpaceX has filed a few already. And our eagle-eyed senior reporter Sean O’Kane spotted a new sentence added to the S-1 document that has some big implications: “We may issue a significant amount of equity in connection with future transactions.”

While it is certainly possible that SpaceX will use the $75 billion it is expected to raise to snap up a variety of companies, the most likely M&A target is Tesla. This sentence was included in the risk factors and appears to be preparing future investors for the possibility of a major dilution event. Read the full story. 

There is another interesting deal spotted by O’Kane — this time involving Carvana and Slate Auto, the electric vehicle startup backed by Jeff Bezos. According to documents obtained by TechCrunch, Carvana has been granted the option to invest in Slate Auto. As O’Kane notes in his article, this could hint at a deeper partnership between the two companies.

Other deals that got more attention …

Layup Parts, a startup trying to become the Amazon of composite parts, raised $42 million in a Series A funding round led by dual-use venture fund Marlinspike, with participation from new investors Cerberus Ventures and Pinegrove Venture Partners, as well as existing backers Founders Fund and Lux Capital. 

Mach Industries, the three-year-old defense tech startup that now has five autonomous vehicles in development, raised a $300 million Series C at a $1.8 billion valuation. The round was led by Infinite Capital and Ribbit Capital and includes backing from Bedrock Capital, Sequoia Capital, and Khosla Ventures.

Molfar Defence Technologies, a Polish-Ukrainian defense startup developing anti-drone radar systems, closed the first tranche of its €2 million funding round. Swedish investor Front Ventures committed €1.5 million, Tech.Eu reported.

Spiro, the African electric mobility startup, raised $215 million in a round that pushed its valuation close to $1 billion, Bloomberg reported. 

Notable reads and other tidbits

Image credits: Bryce Durbin

Avride CEO Dmitry Polishchuk shared a few stats about the autonomous vehicle startup on LinkedIn. The company has completed 60,000 trips for Uber riders in Dallas since launching in December. (Avride robotaxis show up on the Uber app in Dallas.) The company’s fleet of vehicles, which includes test cars and the Uber robotaxis, has driven more than 1.3 million miles, with a million of that covered in the first five months of 2026.

Lectric eBikes launched its third brand in six months — an initiative the company has sunk about $10 million into. How is this seven-year-old company expanding while so many others tanked? I dug into the company a bit and interviewed its co-founder to find out. Read the full story.

Uber’s annual Lost & Found Index has provided a rather quirky anthropological snapshot of its riders over the past decade. This year, the company also released a list of items left in robotaxis that are available via the Uber app. There are some odd items on the list! It also got me thinking about how Uber is clearly finding every way possible to push into — and make money from — the nascent autonomous vehicle industry. To my point: Uber is planning to put 500 data-collection vehicles on the road this year as part of its new AV Labs division. 

Waymo had a couple of interesting news items this week. One of its robotaxis was used in a burglary and the case sheds some light on how Waymo handles all that rider footage it collects. And the Alphabet-owned company announced a deal with B2U to use the batteries from its retired all-electric robotaxis to support electricity grids in California and Texas. 

Woven Capital, Toyota’s growth fund, promoted Jarek Khoilian and Manas Punhani as principals. Reminder: Woven Capital launched its $800 million fund II in September 2025.

One more thing …

Image credits: Kirsten Korosec

With Subaru rolling out some new EVs, I thought it would be good to remind myself what the original was like. I’m talking about the Solterra, which was born out of a partnership between Toyota and Subaru to jointly develop a platform dedicated to battery electric vehicles.

I spent a week with a pearl-white 2026 Subaru Solterra premium trim model that starts at $38,495. Putting aside for a moment that my friend’s Ring camera identified the Solterra as a mini golf cart, this EV does have something to offer. Yeah, it’s basic. And sure, it’s not going to fire off the line like a Tesla, Lucid, or Porsche Taycan. But it doesn’t need to. 

The headline here is that the Solterra has gotten better — and it really needed it. 

The 2026 model has a bunch of notable updates that improve the power, range, and usability. 

The front and rear motors have been updated — along with a new controller that improves power distribution and control — and together produce an improved 233 horsepower (the XT trim pushes it up to 388 hp). Like most other EVs out there, the Solterra now has an integrated NACS charging port, the system developed by Tesla. The range has also improved to an EPA-estimated 288 miles, which is notable considering Subaru increased the battery capacity by only 2 kWh and managed to increase the range by more than 50 miles. There is also a preconditioning setting to prepare the battery for a charge, which greatly improves the charging time. 

Subaru revamped the tech inside as well, adding a 14-inch touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto and making wireless 15 W smartphone chargers for standard.

Subaru doesn’t offer true one-pedal driving in the Solterra, a standard bearer of EVs. Instead, the Subaru has paddles located on the back of the steering wheel that let you increase the regenerative braking if you want. But it won’t come to a complete stop like other popular EVs that have one-pedal driving. While longtime EV owners might be turned off by this, it could be more attractive to car buyers who want their EV to act like their old gas-powered car.

Image credits: Ferrari

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for the future of transportation and now, more than ever, how AI is playing a part. 

If you’re into EVs or sports cars, then you surely saw the kerfuffle over Ferrari’s first all-electric car, the Luce. The reaction was swift and biting for the five-seater EV designed by Apple veteran Jony Ive and priced at close to $650,000.

Ferrari fans expressed horror, critics compared it to the far cheaper Nissan Leaf, memes were made, and even one car designer (Lucid’s Derek Jenkins) threw some shade.

Senior reporter Sean O’Kane asked a different question as the great Ferrari Luce debate blew up the internet: Who is the Luce for?

You’ll have to read the full story to get his complete breakdown. But in my view, the most important question is whether the Luce is for existing Ferrari owners. After all, Ferrari owners often possess more than one. More than 80% of the 14,000 people who bought a Ferrari last year already own one of its vehicles, O’Kane notes.

According to Ferrari, there is demand for the EV. Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna claims the Luce is already getting orders from old and new customers. Assuming that demand outstrips the number of Luce EVs that the automaker plans to make, the next question is, who will Ferrari pick? (IYKYK)

Ferrari could be vindicated. Remember the Ferrari Purosangue, which was widely panned when it launched several years ago? That SUV is now considered a success. Sometimes it doesn’t matter if a product is hated. Ferrari doesn’t need universal approval; it just needs enough buyers.

Let’s jump from EVs to AVs.

A new Texas law allows its Department of Motor Vehicles agency to exert more control over autonomous vehicle testing and deployment in the state. Companies must now license AVs in the state, and the data is public. Here’s what I found after spending a little time with the AV tracker tool. 

Waymo is far and away the leader with 577 registered AVs, followed by Avride with 317, Nuro with 47, and Tesla with 42. Self-driving truck companies Aurora, Gatik AI, Kodiak AI, and Waabi can also be found. (For all the details, you can read my story.)

Fleet size is just one measure — and it certainly doesn’t always translate into whoever has the most wins. After all, many of these companies have not launched commercial services in the state.

I’m far more interested in the complaints feature on this new tool, which is also public record. As of today, complaints have not been filed against the companies listed above.

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A new single asset fund managed by Equip Capital has taken a majority stake in European e-scooter operator Ryde Technology. Goldman Sachs Alternatives is the lead investor. 

Harley-Davidson’s electric motorbike spinoff LiveWire acquired electric off-road startup Dust Moto. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

Matternet, an autonomous drone delivery company, raised $33 million in a private placement offering and completed a reverse merger with Los Altos Ventures Corp.

Revel, the EV charging company that shuttered its ride-hailing business last August, is merging with Voltera. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the combined business will operate under the Voltera brand and will be led by Revel CEO Frank Reig, Bloomberg reported. 

Stark, a German drone maker, is in talks to raise at least €300 million ($350 million), a round that could double its valuation to €2.5 billion, the Financial Times reported.

Volara Motorsports Group, a motorsports and performance-focused holding company, acquired Lynx Motor Works, an Austin, Texas-based company that makes limited-production, reimagined classic vehicles.

WeRoad, the Milan-based group adventure travel startup, raised $58 million in a Series C round led by Airbnb. The funding brings the company’s total capital raised to roughly $100 million and will finance WeRoad’s push into the U.S., beginning with Austin.

Notable reads and other tidbits

Image credits: Bryce Durbin

American Airlines will install Starlink on more than 500 narrow-body Airbus aircraft beginning early next year, the latest carrier to pick the SpaceX unit for in-flight Wi-Fi service. The deal provides a financial lift for Starlink, the satellite communications network and the only SpaceX business unit that generates meaningful revenue.

Rivian said it will begin deliveries of its new R2 SUV on June 9. Meanwhile, Rivian is being investigated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration over how the EV maker services its vehicles’ rear suspension components. 

Slate Auto is expected to announce pricing and start taking nonrefundable preorders for its low-cost electric vehicle on June 24. Deliveries are supposed to happen later this year. 

Volvo Cars received a specification authorization by the Commerce Department that allows the Swedish automaker, which is majority owned by China’s Geely Holding, to continue to import and sell its vehicles in the United States. A law, finalized in January 2025, effectively bans virtually all Chinese vehicles from the U.S. market as part of a crackdown on connected car technology with ties to China. 

Waymo has started giving select riders in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco access to its newest robotaxi: an all-electric, minivan-like vehicle that is designed to lower costs and handle the use and abuse of hundreds of thousands of riders. I had a chance to ride in the vehicle, a modified Zeekr-made minivan called the Ojai (pronounced oh-hi). Stay tuned for my full review, which will run this weekend. Here’s a teaser: Robotaxis have long suffered from a magic problem. This Ojai robotaxi starts to solve it.

One more thing …

It’s poll time! Maybe you secretly like the Ferrari Luce and just don’t want to get trolled. Maybe you hate it. Share your opinion here.

And now one more thing, for real this time. Last week, I asked readers, “Will SpaceX and Tesla merge?” Here's how they answered. More than 51% selected "Yes, within two years”; 34% picked "never"; and 14.5% chose "Yes, this year." That means more than 65% believe a merger is inevitable.

Image credits: Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times / Getty Images

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation.

Robotaxis are here! And yet, they’re not. 

That contradiction neatly captures Waymo’s current reality. Anyone walking around San Francisco could reasonably declare that robotaxis have arrived. But arrival, even at scale, doesn’t guarantee permanence. Such is the dogged threat hanging over every company trying to commercialize autonomous vehicles.

Waymo paused operations in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio because its robotaxis are struggling to deal with heavy rain and flooded roads — and specifically knowing when not to enter them. As I prepared to send this newsletter, we learned the company extended that to Austin and Nashville as well. It’s been a persistent problem for Waymo, which prompted the company to issue a recall last week.

In the same week, Waymo halted robotaxi operations on freeways in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Miami as it works to improve performance in construction zones.

For now, the arrival of robotaxis is conditional. That doesn’t mean this conditional status will last forever, but it’s a reminder that launching commercially is not mission accomplished. Waymo — arguably the leader in commercial robotaxi ridership and fleet size — is in the thick of that process. For every new city it enters or capability it unlocks, a new edge case is discovered.

Situationship or corporationmaxxing?

I’m ditching my “Little bird” section this week to dive into SpaceX, its IPO, and the situationship in the Elon Musk business universe.

I typically don’t dedicate too much space in this newsletter to space. Heh. But the SpaceX IPO filing dropped this week, and the man at its helm is also deeply tied to Tesla. So, here we are, talking about space and, more specifically, how Elon Musk uses resources from one company to service another. 

The interconnected nature of Tesla and SpaceX isn’t a secret; Tesla is a publicly traded company and does disclose financial transactions with other Musk-affiliated entities. This new IPO filing does the same and with a bit more detail. And now that Musk’s company xAI has merged with SpaceX, the IPO puts all of these transactions under one company. 

For example, SpaceX purchased $506 million of Tesla’s commercial energy storage products, called Megapack, in 2025 — nearly a threefold increase from the previous year. SpaceX also bought $131 million of Cybertrucks last year. SpaceX paid Musk’s infrastructure firm, The Boring Company, $1 million to construct tunnels in Bastrop, Texas. Musk’s social media company X, which was acquired by xAI last year and has since merged with SpaceX, also spent $1 million leasing space from The Boring Company. 

Then there is Tesla's investment in xAI. Following SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI, that investment was converted into an equity interest in SpaceX.

These costs will likely be eclipsed by two future SpaceX-Tesla projects: building Terafab, a chip-manufacturing facility, and Macrohard, an AI platform the two companies are developing that will use autonomous agents to augment the work of humans.

All of this leads to my question for you. Will SpaceX and Tesla merge?

For other SpaceX coverage, check out these stories:
Everything in the SpaceX IPO filing
A breakdown of how Elon Musk increased his power 
Who will benefit most?
xAI burned through $6.4B last year 
xAI keeps turning to gas turbines to power data centers

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Aboard, a Southern California-based startup developing extended-range electric travel trailers, raised $13 million in a pre-Series A round led by Ondine Capital and Llama Ventures. Fun fact: The company hired Richard Kim — an automotive designer known for his work on the BMW i3 and i8 and as co-founder of the defunct EV startup Canoo — as a consultant.

Quartermaster, an Arlington, Virginia-based startup developing a distributed sensing network for ships, raised $43 million in a Series A funding round co-led by First Round Capital and Quiet Capital.

May Mobility, an autonomous vehicle technology startup, formed a strategic agreement with Ecarx, an automotive tech company backed by Geely founder Li Shufu. Under the deal, Ecarx will supply May Mobility with thousands of purpose-built robotaxi vehicles. The companies plan to partner with a third party to initially deploy the AVs next year and scale to commercialization by 2028. The total value of the project is estimated to be about $750 million over its entire duration.

Scapia, an Indian travel booking startup, raised $63 million in a funding round led by General Catalyst, with existing investors Peak XV Partners and Z47 also participating.

Uber increased its stake and now owns 19.5% of German food delivery company Delivery Hero, Bloomberg reported. 

Notable reads and other tidbits

Image credits: Bryce Durbin

Bryan Reimer, a research scientist at MIT, shared his recent presentation on AI and how its future depends on human behavior, governance, and trust.

The global EV economy is K-shaped, and this is the country that is being left behind. 

Lyft published a blog that lays out the company’s position on autonomous vehicles. In its view — and one that is similar to rival Uber — a ride-hailing service requires human drivers and robot ones. This makes sense politically; Lyft doesn’t want to rattle its human gig workers. It also reflects the realities of where robotaxis are, in terms of scale. The upshot: Robotaxis are not a part of daily life for most people in the United States.

Self-driving tech startup Nuro hired Michael Mancini as its chief financial officer. Mancini was previously CFO at Energy Recovery, Astranis Space Technologies, and Aerion Supersonic.

Stellantis, the automaker behind the Jeep and Ram brands, has tapped self-driving startup Wayve to bring hands-free driving to its vehicles in 2028. Meanwhile, Stellantis unveiled its $70 billion turnaround plan, which includes 11 new models for North America — and even some Chryslers!

Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) driver-assistance software is now available in Lithuania. This is the second European country to approve its use. Reminder: Making FSD available in Europe is critical to Tesla’s and CEO Elon Musk’s ambitions. It’s also financially important for Musk, whose $1 trillion pay package is tied to hitting a number of product goals, including hitting “10 million active FSD subscriptions” by 2035.

A San Francisco doctor who sued Waymo because its identity-verification system misidentified him as a terrorist dropped the lawsuit after the company resolved the issue.

One more thing …

Image credit: Kirsten Korosec

The last time I was in a Nissan Leaf was two years ago when I test drove a 2024 Nissan Leaf SV Plus, which cost $37,815 (including the destination fee). And at the time, I described the experience as a mixed bag. I recently got back in one, this time a 2026 Nissan Leaf Platinum+, priced at $42,635, including destination charges and some special add-ons like two-tone paint and the floor mat package. 

This model, the third generation of the Leaf, had an improved EPA estimated range of 259 miles (and some versions go above 300 miles). But that wasn’t the first upgrade I noticed. This new Leaf had a lighter, more modern, dare I say upscale, interior cabin. I won’t quite say “sleek,” but it was enjoyable and a notable upgrade. (Notice the cool lighting at night in the picture above?) My version, which should be noted was the top trim, came with a wireless phone-charging pad, dimming panoramic roof, a heads-up display, and a long, curved 14.3-inch central screen.

Last time, I complained about the lack of tech for a vehicle priced above $30,000 — like a backup camera with high resolution. There are several notable improvements that come standard and correct my previous criticism, including a 360-degree camera, wireless Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, and adaptive cruise control. This time around, I was happy to get back in a Nissan Leaf.

Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O'Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com. 

Image credits: Amber De Vos/Getty Images for ALSO

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation.

There is a bit of a theme emerging in transportation — and really every industry: AI is creating jobs for some at the loss of others. 

General Motors, for instance, laid off more than 10% of its IT department, or about 600 salaried employees — in a deliberate skills swap. This won’t translate into a one-to-one exchange, which means there will likely be a net-negative job loss. But GM insists it is hiring and those layoffs have made room for it to recruit IT people with AI-focused backgrounds.

The most sought-after capabilities are AI-native development, data engineering and analytics, cloud-based engineering, agent and model development, prompt engineering, and new AI workflows. In practical terms, GM is looking for people who know how to build with AI from the ground up — designing the systems, training the models, and engineering the pipelines — not just use AI as a productivity tool.

Those AI job losses are mounting in the automotive sector. CNBC calculated that Ford, GM, and Stellantis have cut a combined total of more than 20,000 U.S. salaried jobs, or 19% of their combined workforces, from recent employment peaks this decade. While there are a variety of reasons for these cuts, they are generally connected to technological changes, including AI.

Companies are leaning heavily into AI, although anecdotes from some engineers and founders suggests not all of these businesses know quite what they’re doing with it yet. 

Samsara is one company that seems to have figured out a revenue-generating use case. The company has spent the last decade giving its customers cameras to mount inside millions of trucks for driver monitoring, theft prevention, and helping with liability claims. The company took that mountain of data and trained its own model that can detect potholes and determine how quickly they are deteriorating. The company is pitching this product to cities and announced it has several under contract, including Chicago. 

A little bird

Image credits: Bryce Durbin

Nothing this week, although I am working on a fun one! Reach out anytime with insights, tips, or just because. You can reach us via email or Signal.

Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O'Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com.

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You might have noticed that Rivian’s spinoff company Mind Robotics raised another $400 million, just two months after raising $500 million. And that pace got me thinking about its founder RJ Scaringe and his innate ability to get VC and institutional backers to invest in his ideas and projects.

I calculated that investors have poured $12.3 billion into Scaringe’s three startups — Also, Mind Robotics, and Rivian. That figure doesn’t include the close to $12 billion in gross proceeds raised in Rivian’s IPO, nor did I count the more recent strategic deals with Volkswagen Group and Uber — which together could add nearly $7 billion to Rivian’s coffers. 

You can read my whole riff on the topic here. But if you don’t feel like clicking, here is one item that stood out. I spoke to a number of insiders and investors and they all mentioned Scaringe’s ability to give undivided attention to whoever he’s talking to — whether it's an investor, supplier, or exec — and make them feel like the most important person in the room. 

It’s yet another piece of evidence in my long-standing case against multitasking. Debate me!

Other deals that got my attention …

Arkeus, an Australian startup that developed perception software for autonomous drones and aircraft, raised $18 million in a Series A round led by QIC Ventures. Other investors include R+VC, Folklore Ventures, DYNE Ventures, Main Sequence Ventures, Salus Ventures, and Beaten Zone.

Aseon Labs, a Redwood City, California, startup that has developed a depot in a box for charging, cleaning, and inspecting autonomous fleets, came out of stealth with undisclosed backing by Y Combinator. 

Rapido raised $240 million in a round led by Prosus, and that values the Indian ride-hailing company at $3 billion. Existing investors, including WestBridge Capital and Accel, participated. The round was part of a larger $730 million primary and secondary financing.

Quantum Systems, a Germany-based drone startup backed by Peter Thiel, is in talks to raise around €600 million ($703 million) with companies like Airbus and Blackstone as investors, Bloomberg reported.

Notable reads and other tidbits

Image credits: Bryce Durbin

Is Redwood Materials ready for an IPO? Senior reporter Sean O’Kane interviewed the company’s new CFO, Deepak Ahuja, whose name will be familiar to anyone who follows Tesla. Ahuja was Tesla’s former finance chief and most recently held a similar position at drone company Zipline. 

Tesla Robotaxis have crashed at least twice since July 2025 while a teleoperator was remotely driving the vehicles, according to newly unredacted information submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Uber is expanding in India with two new engineering campuses that can fit about 9,600 people and a data center partnership aimed at supporting its overall product development and infrastructure operations.

Waymo issued a software update to its fleet of nearly 4,000 vehicles to help them avoid flooded roads as part of a recall announced by the NHTSA. Important note: The company hasn’t fully solved the problem of how its vehicles behave in these conditions.

One more thing …

Disrupt, our flagship annual tech conference in San Francisco, will be held in October. And while that is a ways off, I wanted to share one bit of news. We will have six stages this year, which you can read about in more detail here. One worth noting for this crowd is our AI in the Real World Stage. It will be here that we’ll dig into robotics, autonomous systems, manufacturing, defense, and industrial operations.

Image credits: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for the future of transportation and now, more than ever, how AI is playing a part.  

After years of hints and preparation, the Uber-backed electric bike and scooter rental startup Lime filed for an initial public offering. A micromobility company going public? In 2026? Surely it’s the wrong year. 

Lime CEO Wayne Ting has been talking about an IPO for years. TechCrunch spoke to him about it in 2020, 2021, and 2023. It never materialized and I sort of forgot about it, until — boom — the S-1 doc, the registration statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, posted early Friday morning. 

There are some interesting risk factors in the S-1, although we still are waiting for Lime to share terms of the offering.

Revenue is climbing, it has positive free cash flow, and net losses narrowed after 2023, although there has been a slight uptick between 2024 and 2025. Uber, which invested in Lime several years ago, still plays an important role for the company. Lime said about 14.3% of its revenue came through its partnership with Uber, which allows customers to find and rent scooters and e-bikes through its app.

All of this suggests Lime is a growth company headed toward profitability. But there is one substantial headwind. Lime has about $1 billion in current liabilities, and about $675.8 million of that is due by the end of 2026. In all, about $846 million is due within 12 months. Lime does not have sufficient liquidity to pay that, according to its filing. Lime states it plainly in the S-1: If it can’t go public and raise the necessary capital, or change its debt agreements, it may not be able to continue operating as a business.

Senior reporter Sean O’Kane, who likes digging through an S-1 as much as I do, spotted some other tidbits in the risk factors. Investment by cities in their public road infrastructure is a risk factor, according to the company. Lime specifically lists potholes, which made me chuckle and then nod in agreement. Potholes are not kind to shared scooters. 

Lime also warned that a significant portion of rides are concentrated in a relatively small number of markets in which it operates. One such market, which accounted for 22.2% of its revenue in 2025, is the U.K. 

A little bird

Image credits: Bryce Durbin

Last summer, Uber announced a plan to launch a premium robotaxi service using Lucid Gravity vehicles equipped with Nuro’s autonomous vehicle technology. This is more than a collaboration. Uber said it would invest $300 million in Lucid and would separately buy “at least” 20,000 of the EV maker’s new Gravity SUV over the next six years. Uber recently raised its investment in Lucid to $500 million and pushed the vehicle order to 35,000. 

The details about Uber’s investment in Nuro, a privately held startup based in Silicon Valley, have been slim — until now. At the time, we only knew that Uber invested an undisclosed “multi-hundred-million-dollar” amount into Nuro. One little bird has shared more details. 

Uber’s total financial commitment to Nuro, which includes its participation in the startup’s Series E round last year and future milestone-based investments, is nearly $500 million, per a source familiar with the deal. 

My educated guess is that Nuro just unlocked one of those milestones. The company is testing the Lucid vehicles in autonomous mode with a human safety operator in the driver’s seat. And last month it expanded testing to allow Uber employees to request an autonomous ride in a Lucid robotaxi with a human safety operator still on board. But the company just received two critical permits — a driverless testing permit from the Department of Motor Vehicles and a permit from the California Public Utilities Commission.

Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O'Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com.

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Kodiak AI’s first-quarter earnings offers a case study for how challenging it is to commercialize frontier tech. The company announced a number of deals that showed progress. It locked in a commercial contract with Roehl; launched a pilot program to test Kodiak-equipped autonomous trucks at West Fraser Timber Co.’s log-hauling operations in Alberta, Canada; and announced a collaboration with the military vehicle maker General Dynamics Land Systems to create autonomous ground vehicles for defense applications.

But investors were not happy with the terms of its $100 million capital raise. The company sold shares at $6.50 each — a steep discount from its closing share price of $9.10. The raise also included warrants — instruments that give investors the right to buy additional shares later at a set price, in this case as low as $6.

The financing came from existing backer Ares Management and several unnamed institutional investors.

Kodiak’s stock price fell 37% in after-hours trading moments after the financing and Q1 earnings were released. Shares have recovered a bit since, perhaps as shareholders digested the news and looked at it from a glass-half-full perspective.

Kodiak will likely need more capital as it continues to burn cash as it pushes toward its big goal: driverless trucking operations on public highways.

Other deals that got my attention this week …

Moment Energy, a startup that’s developed a novel approach to repurposing EV batteries, raised a $40 million Series B funding round led by Canadian VC firm Evok Innovations, with additional funding from grocery retailer fund W23, joining existing investors like Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund and In-Q-Tel, the CIA-funded VC firm.

Rocsys, a startup that has developed hands-free depot solutions for autonomous electric vehicles, raised $13 million in an extended Series A round led by Capricorn Partners, with participation from Scania Invest, Forward.One, SEB Greentech Venture Capital, and Graduate Ventures.

Notable reads and other tidbits

Image credits: Bryce Durbin

Aurora has started hauling loads in driverless trucks in Texas for distribution giant McLane. The commercial contract shows some progress by the self-driving trucks company. Disclaimer: These driverless trucks still have human observers in the cab, and the company tells us they cannot operate the vehicle. 

Lucid’s first-quarter earnings revealed a company still feeling the effects of a supplier issue earlier this year that caused it to recall its Gravity SUV and pause deliveries. The company, which is also going through a leadership transition, changed its guidance and said it was no longer sure how many EVs it will build or sell this year. 

In 2024, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration updated the New Car Assessment Program and added four new pass-fail tests to assess the performance of advanced assistance systems, starting in 2026. And we’re finally seeing the results. The later-release 2026 Tesla Model Y is the first vehicle to meet the agency’s new benchmark.

Ouster is launching a new lineup of color lidar sensors that CEO Angus Pacala believes will replace cameras.

EV startup Slate has lost a notable board member. The head of Jeff Bezos’ family office left the board, according to numerous state filings reviewed by TechCrunch.

Volkswagen is now Rivian’s largest shareholder, pushing Amazon out of the top spot.

One more thing …

Well, maybe two more. 

Senior reporter Rebecca Bellan interviewed Aurora founder and CEO Chris Urmson recently for the Equity podcast. Listen to the episode here. 

And, finally, we had a poll last week! Here was what I posed to readers: “The California DMV issued new rules for AVs. Self-driving trucks can now test and deploy in the state. Reporting, data collection, and operations requirements have been expanded and law enforcement can issue traffic violations. These rules: go too far, hit the mark, or aren’t restrictive enough.” 

About 41% picked “hit the mark,” while 27.6% said the rules go too far, and 31% said they aren’t restrictive enough.

Image credits: Waymo

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation.

We’re going to do a bit of a deep dive today, which may make this newsletter look a little different than normal. There is a reason! 

This newsletter is not region-specific, but sometimes there are policies at the state level that have widespread implications for tech companies and startups alike. Which brings me to California and the new autonomous vehicle testing and deployment rules issued this week by the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles. 

There are two new sets of rules — collectively 100 pages long — that cover requirements for the testing and deployment of AVs. I spent the past few days speaking to engineers and policy folks working at AV companies and discovered that they have strong opinions and few want to speak publicly about it. But thanks to the public commentary period on these regulations, we have some insight into what the industry supported and what it did not. 

The regulations include new, more robust requirements for data collection and sharing, training, and operations. Here are a few items that stuck out and what insiders told me.

How do you ticket a robotaxi? Under these new rules, law enforcement can cite AV companies for traffic violations committed by their vehicles. The rule, called “Notice of Autonomous Vehicle Noncompliance,” requires the manufacturer (meaning the robotaxi company) to report the violation to the DMV within 72 hours of receiving it from law enforcement. 

I’ve heard a number of interpretations of this rule and how it will be implemented, but it appears there is not a monetary fine attached to these violations. Instead, these violations are another piece of data that the DMV can use to identify problems and take action if needed.

Insiders told me that the data is actionable and more important than a monetary fine. My question: Why not both? 

The good news for industry: The DMV will now allow heavy-duty vehicles equipped with autonomous vehicle tech to test and eventually deploy on public roads. Self-driving truck companies are happy with this outcome. Daniel Goff, VP of external affairs at Kodiak, told me the company is already working on the required documentation to apply for a permit. 

The burden for the industry: The word that came up in every conversation I had with someone in the AV industry was “burdensome.” And it was always used in reaction to the new data collection and sharing regulations. 

Goodbye, disengagement reports; hello, malfunctions: Others were happy to see annual disengagement reporting disappear. Disengagement reports, which detailed instances when human drivers had to take over control due to technology failures or safety concerns, have been controversial because companies use varying standards. This has made it impossible to compare the results or rate the proficiency of autonomous vehicle technology. 

That entire section has been removed and replaced with a requirement to report “dynamic driving task performance relevant system failure." This may seem like semantics — trading one jargony phrase for another. Insiders tell me that while it is not a perfect metric, it is clearer than its predecessor. That doesn’t mean it is beloved either. 

There is a lot more in these documents, including a requirement to provide annual updates to first responder interaction plans, access to manual vehicle override systems, two-way communication links with 30-second response times, and updated training requirements to ensure safe and timely interactions with first responders.

My question for you, reader, is whether these rules go too far or if they are appropriate and provide the kind of reporting and data collection needed to keep these companies accountable? Vote in our poll!

A little bird

Image credits: Bryce Durbin

We had a lot of little birds talk to us about the new California AV rules, so nothing new to add here. But remember, you can always send us tips. Here’s how.

Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O'Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com. 

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BMW i Ventures launched a new $300 million fund with a timely thesis: AI will reshape how the automotive industry operates. The fund will invest in early-stage through Series B startups in North America and Europe that are working on agentic AI and physical AI as well as industrial software, advanced materials, and manufacturing and supply-chain technologies. This third fund brings the firm’s total capital under management to $1.1 billion. 

Other deals that got my attention …

Sereact, a German robotics startup, raised $110 million in a Series B funding round led by VC Headline. Other investors include Bullhound Capital, Felix Capital, Daphni, Air Street Capital, Creandum, and Point Nine.

Spirit Airlines is preparing to shut down after failing to secure a $500 million lifeline from the government, the WSJ reports. The company is expected to cease operations around 3 a.m. ET Saturday.

Notable reads and other tidbits

Image credits: Bryce Durbin

China suspended issuing new licenses for autonomous vehicles after dozens of Baidu's Apollo Go robotaxis suddenly stopped last month, Bloomberg reported.

Google's Gemini AI assistant is hitting the road in millions of vehicles.

Faraday Future paid around $7.5 million to a company controlled by its founder, Jia Yueting, in 2025, senior reporter Sean O’Kane discovered in a recent SEC filing. 

Rivian reported earnings this week and one item that stood out to us — and to many others — was the downsizing of its DOE loan from $6.6 billion to $4.5 billion. That loan restructuring comes with changes to its Georgia factory. Instead of two 200,000-vehicle capacity structures on the Georgia site, Rivian will now build a 300,000-vehicle capacity factory and leave the adjacent “pad” untouched and ready for future development. Analysts didn’t necessarily view this as negative but did position this as rightsizing. Barclays, for instance, views the modification as Rivian adjusting to the current EV environment, according to a research note published Friday. Barclays also stated it didn’t believe Rivian currently plans to build the second plant at Georgia, “at least not until early/mid next decade.”

Tesla launched a Semi-Charging for Business program, which includes a new product called the Basecharger that is designed for depot and overnight use.

Uber has tapped Hertz to clean, charge, and fix its Lucid Motors robotaxis. This announcement left us with a cheeky question: How many companies does it take to launch a robotaxi service?

Uber customers in the United States can now book hotels directly through the app, one of several new features announced this week that pushes far beyond the company’s original ride-hailing purpose and even deeper into its users’ lives. At launch, Uber customers will have access to more than 700,000 hotels worldwide through a partnership with Expedia Group, the travel company that Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi led for 12 years.

Vay, a remote driving tech startup, says it has grown its fleet to 175 vehicles on the road and has surpassed 60,000 rides.

Image credits: Arda Kucukkaya/Anadolu/Getty Images

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation.

Tesla earnings came and went, and much of it fell into the “we expected this” category. Investors seemed surprised by the $1.4 billion in free cash flow, which gave shares a brief bump, and revenue met or slightly exceeded expectations, depending on which batch of analysts you reviewed. 

The earnings call, however, did deliver one eyebrow-raising moment that prompted readers (including some ex-Tesla engineers and other founders in the industry) to reach out to me with some schadenfreude-tinted prose. CEO Elon Musk admitted that millions of Tesla owners will need hardware upgrades to run a future, more capable version of its Full Self-Driving software that doesn’t require human supervision. 

There are financial and legal implications for Tesla. As senior reporter Sean O’Kane wrote, Tesla owners with Hardware 3 cars have spent years bugging the company and Musk for a straight answer about whether they would be able to run this advanced version of Full Self-Driving — which, it should be noted, Tesla has not yet released or even proven it is capable of releasing. Tesla sold these Hardware 3 cars between 2019 and 2023.

Now, here is the kicker and it made me guffaw. Musk said the company would need to physically upgrade each of these vehicles, a feat that would require Tesla to set up microfactories in several major cities to service potentially millions of vehicles. 

Microfactories? Yes, you heard correctly. This is not going to be cheap, and it could be one of the line items in Tesla’s capital expenditures budget, which it expanded to a whopping $25 billion this year. 

A little bird

Image credits: Bryce Durbin

Senior reporter Sean O’Kane obtained (and verified) an internal memo sent by Redwood Materials founder and CEO JB Straubel that announced layoffs and a restructuring. (Thanks to the little bird who shared it.) Straubel is a former CTO of Tesla.

The company laid off around 135 employees, or roughly 10% of its workforce, as it restructures to better accommodate its growing energy storage business. O’Kane later learned several executives have also recently left. Chief operating officer Chris Lister is retiring, and at least three other VPs have left in recent months, with the company telling TechCrunch there has been a focus on reducing layers of management.

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Last week, I shared that a new autonomous hauler startup (think a cabless autonomous big rig) backed by Eclipse was about to break cover and announce a seed round, thanks to a little bird. Welp, it happened just days later. 

The San Francisco-based startup, called Humble Robotics, raised $24 million in a seed round. Eclipse led the round, which also included backing by Energy Impact Partners and RedBlue Capital, a small early-stage VC firm that is surprisingly active. 

As I had been told, Humble really is chock-full of Silicon Valley elite, including founder Eyal Cohen, who previously had stints at Apple special projects, Uber ATG, Pronto, and Waabi. He also founded Spark AI, which was acquired by John Deere in 2023. 

Other execs include Drew Gray, who has a similarly AV-heavy résumé, including early days at Cruise, before jumping over to self-driving trucks startup Otto, which was acquired by Uber. After leaving Uber, he became CTO at Voyage, which was then acquired by Cruise. 

A full-circle moment, cemented by this fun fact: Humble Robotics is in the same building Cruise was in right after the startup moved out of founder Kyle Vogt’s garage. I know, we keep circling back to 2016.  

Except it’s not 2016, and Cohen and Gray talked to me about how much has changed since then, why this is the time to launch an AV startup, and where the industry is headed. Stay tuned for that story next week.

Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O'Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com. 

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Lyft stuck to the North American market for much of its history, while Uber took a global, expand-at-all-costs strategy. Lyft has been trying to catch up since last year when it bought German multi-mobility app Freenow from BMW and Mercedes-Benz Mobility for about $197 million in cash. 

Now it’s acquiring ride-hailing app Gett’s U.K. business. Lyft says the deal will give it the majority of registered black cab drivers across Greater London on the Lyft platform. The company didn’t disclose the terms, but Calcalist reported it was $55 million. 

The company is also building out other means of transport in the region, including its recently renewed partnership with Serco to provide the bikes and stations for Europe’s bike-share system Santander Cycles. Lyft is also planning to start testing autonomous rides in London with Baidu later this year. 

Other deals that got my attention …

A&K Robotics, a Vancouver, Canada-based maker of autonomous vehicles for airports, raised an $8 million CAD Series A round led by BDC's Industrial Innovation Venture Fund and Vantage Futures.

Decade Energy, which provides power infrastructure at logistics depots, raised €22 million in funding led by Eiffel Investment Group and SET Ventures, along with existing investors.

Reliable Robotics, a Silicon Valley startup developing autonomous systems for aircraft, raised $160 million in a round led by Nimble Partners, existing backers Eclipse, Lightspeed, Coatue, and Pathbreaker Ventures, and new investors Island Green Capital, Socium Ventures, AE Ventures (a strategic partner of the Boeing Company), RTX Ventures, Presidio Ventures (Sumitomo Corporation), UP.Partners, KAS Venture Partners, What If Ventures, Calm Ventures, Gaingels, and Mana Ventures. History lesson: Co-founder and CEO Robert Rose had a brief stint at Tesla where he was senior director of Autopilot and helped ship that first iteration in 2015.

PlusAI and blank-check company Churchill Capital Corp IX terminated its SPAC merger deal due to market conditions.

Porsche is selling its stake in the Bugatti Rimac joint venture, which it formed in 2021, as well as electric-vehicle maker Rimac Group. Porsche, which holds a 20.6% stake in Rimac and a 45% stake in the joint venture, is selling to HOF Capital. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.

Notable reads and other tidbits

Image credits: Bryce Durbin

Einride is adding 75 of its electric heavy-duty trucks to Amazon’s Relay freight network as part of a deal that gives the Swedish startup a toehold in the e-commerce giant’s operations. 

Ford and Chinese automaker Geely reportedly held talks about extending a European tie-up into the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reported. The implications, of course, would be Chinese vehicles entering the U.S. market. But it sounds like talks have stalled, leaving this consequential deal in limbo. Bloomberg reported that Ford has denied these claims. 

Porsche is adding another EV to its lineup. The Cayenne electric coupe will come to market in late summer. There’s some interesting data in my article on why this one might be a winner for Porsche. 

The first customer-ready Rivian R2 SUVs rolled off the production line at its factory in Normal, Illinois, just days after it was hit by an EF-1 tornado that tore off part of the roof. Founder and CEO RJ Scaringe said Rivian doesn’t anticipate any delays to the R2, which are expected to reach customers in June. 

One more thing …

Image credits: Kirsten Korosec

As diligent readers of this newsletter know, I test-drive a fair number of vehicles, and sometimes they are not EVs. Take the Aston Martin Vantage Roadster, for instance. I was anxious to get into the roadster, not just because this $205,000 chiltern-green machine is sleek, powerful, and a convertible. I wanted to test the Apple CarPlay Ultra, the next-generation infotainment system that projects iPhone content to the vehicle’s screens (including the instrument cluster) and integrates vehicle controls like the radio, performance settings, and climate. CarPlay Ultra first launched in the Aston Martin, which isn’t exactly easy to get my hands on. 

My first experience with Apple Ultra CarPlay last summer was mixed. It was great — when it worked, but it often didn’t. The problem seemed to be tied to a bug that showed two versions of the vehicle in the Bluetooth settings. 

This time around, the setup was instant and it never glitched. Hooray. And it always worked. This really matters for Aston Martin, which for years was stuck with Mercedes-Benz’ old COMAND system. (Mercedes ditched that system in 2018 for its new MBUX one).

Image credits: Nissan

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for the future of transportation and now, more than ever, how AI is playing a part. 

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how Uber seemed to be everywhere, all at once in the emerging autonomous vehicle technology sector. The Financial Times has now put a number on it. The FT calculated that Uber has committed more than $10 billion to buying autonomous vehicles and taking equity stakes in the companies developing the tech, according to public records and discussions with folks behind the scenes. About $2.5 billion of that is in direct investments, with the remaining $7.5 billion to be spent on buying robotaxis over the next few years, the outlet reported.

We’ve reported on Uber’s numerous investments and deals with autonomous vehicle companies across drones, robotaxis, and freight. Some of its investments include WeRide, Lucid and Nuro, Rivian, and Wayve. 

This rather large number (and particularly that $7.5 billion) got me thinking about another transformative era in Uber’s history and how it has visited these asset-heavy shores before. Uber might have started with a plan to be asset light, but for a brief period it did quite the opposite.

Uber went on a moonshot spree between 2015 and 2018. It launched electric air taxi developer Uber Elevate and the in-house autonomous vehicle unit Uber ATG, which would be boosted by its acquisition of Otto in 2016. It also snapped up micromobility startup Jump in 2018. 

And then in 2020, Uber pulled the asset-heavy rip cord, ostensibly leaving all of those moonshots behind. Uber sold Uber ATG to Aurora, Jump to Lime, and Elevate to Joby Aviation. But it didn’t completely divest; it kept equity stakes in all of them.

Uber is now entering into a new and different asset-heavy era. It’s not plunking down millions, or even billions, to develop the technology in-house, although I’m sure folks there would be quick to pipe up that there is always R&D happening over at Uber. Instead, it appears to be focused on owning (or perhaps leasing) the physical assets. 

That could mean interesting line items on Uber’s balance sheet in the future. 

Owning fleets of robotaxis built by other companies might not have been the original vision of Uber, or its former CEO Travis Kalanick, who has said the company made a mistake when it abandoned its AV development program. But this new approach could still get it to the same end point.

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Earlier this month, I interviewed Eclipse partner Jiten Behl about the venture firm’s new $1.3 billion fund and where that money might be headed. The firm, as I wrote, intends to incubate more startups (e.g., it was behind the Rivian spinout Also). Behl wouldn’t give me details, only stating, “We’re definitely working on a couple of really cool ideas.” He also said Eclipse is particularly interested in startups that work across enterprises.

Thanks to one little bird and some document diving by senior reporter Sean O’Kane, it looks like a seed round announcement is imminent for a San Francisco-based startup working on an autonomous hauler that I’ve been told doesn’t have a driver cab. This sounds similar to what Einride has built, but since we haven’t seen it, we’ll have to wait. 

The company’s roster isn’t big, but it is chock-full of Silicon Valley tech elite, including a founder who was at Uber ATG, Pronto, and Waabi. Stay tuned for more. 

Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O'Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com.

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Slate is back with more capital as it prepares to put its first affordable pickup trucks into production by the end of 2026.

The electric vehicle startup, which got its start with backing from Jeff Bezos, raised another $650 million in a Series C funding round led by TWG Global. Keep your eye on TWG. This is the firm run by Guggenheim Partners chief executive (and Los Angeles Dodgers owner) Mark Walter and investor Thomas Tull. 

Slate has raised about $1.4 billion to date, and its previous investors include General Catalyst, Jeff Bezos’ family office, VC firm Slauson & Co., and former Amazon executive Diego Piacentini, as TechCrunch first reported last year.

Other deals that got my attention …

Glydways, a San Francisco-based startup developing personal autonomous pods designed to operate on dedicated 2-meter-wide lanes in cities, raised $170 million in a Series C funding round co-led by Suzuki Motor Corporation, ACS Group, and Khosla Ventures. Existing investors Mitsui Chemicals and Gates Frontier and new investor Obayashi Corporation also participated. But wait, there’s more. 

GM and Ford are reportedly talking to the Pentagon about whether the auto industry can help the military revamp its procurement program and find cheaper, faster ways to buy vehicles, munitions, or other hardware, the New York Times reported, citing anonymous sources.

Loop, a San Francisco-based startup, raised $95 million in a Series C funding round led by Valor Equity Partners and the Valor Atreides AI Fund, and includes investments from 8VC, Founders Fund, Index Ventures, and J.P. Morgan’s late-stage fund, Growth Equity Partners.

Monarch Tractor, the startup developing electric, autonomous tractors, has moved on to (ahem) a different pasture. The startup’s assets have been acquired by Caterpillar after struggling to pivot to a software services business.

Uber is increasing its stake in Delivery Hero by 4.5%, the Financial Times reported. Uber agreed to buy about 270 million euros in shares from Prosus, the Dutch investment group and Delivery Hero’s largest shareholder.

Notable reads and other tidbits

Image credits: Bryce Durbin

Doug Field, the high-profile executive who shaped Ford’s electric vehicle and technology strategies over the past five years, is leaving. Notably, Ford is shaking up the organization as well, creating a “product creation and industrialization” team to be led by COO Kumar Galhotra. Any guesses where Field is headed next? Perhaps he’ll return to Silicon Valley. 

Lightship, the all-electric RV startup, is expanding its Colorado-based factory by another 44,000 square feet, which will allow it to quadruple its manufacturing capacity.

Rivian and battery recycling and materials startup Redwood Materials partnered years ago. We’re now seeing the fruits of that relationship. Redwood is installing battery energy storage at Rivian’s factory in Illinois. The catch? Redwood is using 100 second-life Rivian battery packs, which will provide 10 megawatt-hours (MWh) of dispatchable energy to reduce cost and grid load during peak demand periods.

Tesla created a new self-driving app that makes it easier for owners to subscribe to its Full Self-Driving software and see statistics on how — and how often — they use it. This may not be huge news, but it did catch my eye because of the gamified qualities of these new stats. 

Waymo, as per usual, has a few news items this week. The Alphabet-owned company started testing its autonomous vehicles on public roads in London. It also removed its waitlist in Miami and Orlando to scale its robotaxi services in the two cities. 

One more thing …

This newsletter isn’t my only project that is leaning more heavily into robotics. My podcast, the Autonocast, is too, as the worlds of autonomous vehicles, AI, and robotics mash together. Check out this interview with Foxglove founder Adrian MacNeil, who previously worked at Cruise.

Image credits: Getty Images

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for the future of transportation and now, more than ever, how AI is playing a part.  

Normally, I have an analysis and then a little bird (my insidery bits curated just for you). But today I am combining them because I simply have too many little birds talking to me about the new talent wars.

About seven years ago, the founder of a self-driving vehicle company told me that competing with the likes of Waymo for talent was “like a knife fight.” Now it seems there is a new poaching war going on, according to a handful of little birds. And it’s pushing base salaries (not including equity and other benefits) to between $300,000 and $500,000. 

Here’s what is happening. The buzzy physical AI sector is filled with robotics and defense tech companies looking for people with a specific set of skills (to quote Liam Neeson). And these folks are mostly working at companies developing self-driving trucks and robotaxis. 

As these employees get lured to other sectors — including defense — automakers and startups are being pushed to raise salaries or risk losing the talent to better-paying “physical AI” jobs.

The ideal candidate for an autonomous vehicle company has hybrid skills, a mix of classical robotics and AI know-how, according to one founder. It’s this specific understanding of how to integrate AI into hardware like humanoid robots, industrial robots, and autonomous forklifts, as well as with construction, mining, and agriculture equipment that has companies fighting over talent. 

Defense tech startups are apparently the most generous when it comes to compensation, thanks to the Department of Defense’s open wallet. Jobs looking for an applied researcher or AI enablement engineer (or something similar to that) are hot tickets right now. 

This likely won’t hurt Waymo. As one founder noted, Waymo is price insensitive. But startups and automotive, which have heavily invested in autonomous vehicles, will likely be most affected, several little birds told me. 

I predict a twofold follow-on effect. Automakers will have a hard time holding on to engineers who are working on automated driving, leading to an exodus. Meanwhile, startups will need to raise even more money or get a lot smarter about how those funds are used.

A little bird

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Well you already got the little bird for the week. Scroll up! But I’m keeping this cute graphic around to remind you all to reach out, give me a call, or email with tips!

Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O'Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com.

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Remember in 2016 when the words “self-driving” on a pitch deck seemed to instantly produce a term sheet? While the vibes of 2016 have percolated up into 2026, founders and investors have moved on. Now, as you have probably noticed, it’s all about physical AI, a loose category that stretches far beyond robotaxis and self-driving trucks.  

The Palo Alto-based venture firm Eclipse has put itself at the center of the physical AI action and now has another $1.3 billion to invest in it. The new $1.3 billion in fresh capital is split between a $591 million early-stage incubation fund and one more oriented toward growth startups. 

I chatted with Eclipse partner Jiten Behl about the fund and where those dollars are likely headed. I was particularly interested in his thoughts about Eclipse’s role in incubating startups. Eclipse hasn’t cut any new checks just yet, but Behl did say the firm will incubate more startups and said, “We’re definitely working on a couple of really cool ideas.”

So, stay tuned. And check out the full story here.

Other deals that got my attention …

Candela, a Swedish electric hydrofoil company, landed a 20-boat order with Norwegian operator Boreal. Meanwhile, Candela founder and CEO Gustav Hasselskog is stepping down. Sofia Graflund is the new CEO and Hasselskog will assume the role of executive chairman. 

Hermeus, a Los Angeles-based defense startup that is developing unmanned aircraft, raised $350 million with a $1 billion valuation. That funding includes $200 million in equity led by Khosla Ventures. The remaining $150 million comes in the form of debt.

Sora Fuel, a sustainable aviation fuel startup based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, raised $14.6 million in a round co-led by Spero Ventures and Inspired Capital, Axios reported. 

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said during an interview on CNBC that there’s room for airline mergers in the United States.

Notable reads and other tidbits

Image credits: Bryce Durbin

Avride is the latest autonomous vehicle company to face criticism from residents upset about the behavior of its robotaxis. In this case, it involved an autonomous vehicle (with a human safety operator) that ran over and killed a mother duck in the Austin, Texas, enclave of Mueller Lake. “It didn’t slow down or hesitate at all, just steamrolled through,” one witness said.  Read the story to learn how Avride is handling it. 

Gas prices aren’t the only factor fueling used EV sales. 

John Deere reached a $99 million settlement agreement to resolve “right to repair” litigation pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Wired has a good breakdown of the issue and why this matters. 

If you didn’t get the memo, startups and Big Tech companies alike are working on physical AI and automation. Mariana Minerals, which is focused on the mining industry, is one of them. Senior reporter Sean O’Kane interviewed founder Turner Caldwell, a former Tesla engineer who founded the startup in 2024, about the company’s latest partnership with autonomous vehicle tech company Pronto (and yes, this is the Pronto founded by Anthony Levandowski that was just acquired by Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick’s startup Atoms). 

Remember when Elon Musk said a smaller, cheaper $25,000 EV is pointless and silly? Well, according to Reuters’ sources, Tesla is developing an all-new smaller, cheaper electric SUV.

Volkswagen will no longer produce the all-electric ID.4 at its U.S. factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Its replacement? High-volume vehicles like the upcoming gas-powered Atlas SUV.

The ID.4 will be available to U.S. consumers until the current inventory runs out. VW tells me that it should last into 2027.

Meanwhile, Volkswagen subsidiary MOIA America is making a bit of progress on the autonomous vehicle front. MOIA America and Uber started testing autonomous microbuses in Los Angeles ahead of a robotaxi service the companies plan to launch by late 2026. Caveat! When this service launches, it will not be driverless at the start. The company expects to pull the human safety operator out of the vehicles in 2027. Also, the term “microbus” may be a bit of an overstatement; these vehicles will seat only four.

Waymo and Waze launched a data-sharing pilot program that will funnel pothole data collected by robotaxis to a free Waze platform designed for cities. Any city or state (or regular ol’ Waze user) where Waymo operates will be able to access that data as the program expands.

In other Waymo news, the Alphabet-owned company has opened its robotaxi service to the public in Nashville. Eleven cities and counting.

Image credits: Tim Goessman/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation.

You might recall the congressional hearing last month that sparked criticism against Waymo over its use of remote assistance workers in the Philippines. We have covered that issue extensively. You can read about the company’s remote assistance and road assistance teams here and here. 

Waymo tends to get the most attention because, well, those robotaxis are now operating commercially in 10 U.S. cities, with more coming soon. But the issue of remote assistance is not a Waymo issue. It’s an autonomous vehicle technology issue. 

A new report from Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) makes my point. 

Markey sent letters to seven U.S. companies — Aurora, May Mobility, Motional, Nuro, Tesla, Waymo, and Zoox — working on autonomous vehicle technology with a list of questions. He wanted to know how often these companies’ vehicles relied on input from remote staff. 

They all refused to say, according to the results of Markey’s investigation. Markey said it was a “stunning lack of transparency from the AV companies around their use of remote assistance operators to help guide their AVs.”

You can read senior reporter Sean O’Kane’s article, which digs into the issue and includes the rather mute responses from the companies. (TechCrunch reached out to all of them.) One interesting admission from Tesla: The company said its remote assistance workers are authorized to temporarily assume direct vehicle control (a very different thing than “remote assistance”) as a final escalation maneuver.

But here’s the thing — this is not going away. And silence will not defuse the matter. If anything, Markey seems more motivated than ever to get answers. He is now calling on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to investigate companies’ use of remote assistance workers and said he is “working on legislation to impose strict guardrails on AV companies’ use of remote operators.”

A little bird

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Nothing this week that we have been able to verify. Send us tips! Have one? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O'Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com.

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It seems like just last week I was writing about Uber being everywhere, all at once. And I see it is still a trend, although this time it isn’t directly related to autonomous vehicles. 

Uber said it is buying Berlin-based startup Blacklane, which provides on-demand, black-car chauffeur services, as the ride-hail giant expands deeper into luxury and executive travel services. Blacklane, which was founded in 2011, had raised more than $100 million to date from rental car company Sixt, Mercedes-Benz, and Alfahim, a conglomerate in the UAE.

The timing of the acquisition is notable. It comes just a few weeks after Uber announced the launch of Uber Elite, a chauffeur service that also offers a bunch of luxury offerings like airport meet-and-greets and in-vehicle amenities. 

Other deals that got my attention …

Manna Air Delivery, a consumer drone delivery startup based in Ireland, raised $50 million from ARK Invest, the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, Schooner Capital, Coca-Cola HBC, and Molten Ventures.

Saronic Technologies, an autonomous military ship developer based in Austin, raised $1.75 billion in a Series D funding round led by Kleiner Perkins. The company is now valued at $9.25 billion. Other investors include Advent International, Bessemer Venture Partners, DFJ Growth, BAM Elevate, and other new partners and recognizes the continued commitment of its existing investors, including 8VC, Caffeinated Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Elad Gil, and Franklin Templeton.

Voltify, a startup that has developed a way to retrofit diesel locomotives with battery power, raised $30 million in seed funding co-led by Israeli venture firm Aleph and Australian miner Fortescue.

Notable reads and other tidbits

Image credits: Bryce Durbin

Also, the micromobility company created inside Rivian that spun out last year, will work with DoorDash to develop autonomous delivery vehicles. As part of the deal, DoorDash took part in Also’s $200 million Series C funding round, which was led by Greenoaks Capital. DoorDash is getting a seat on Also’s board of directors, too.

Baidu robotaxis stalled throughout Wuhan, China, in some cases trapping passengers for up to two hours due to system failure. 

GM is ramping up its efforts to improve its advanced driver-assistance system, Super Cruise. CEO Mary Barra posted on LinkedIn that GM has started supervised testing of its next-gen automated driving system on public highways in California and Michigan.

“Soon, more than 200 supervised and manual test vehicles will be in live traffic, with trained drivers ready to take over at any time. This data will guide future updates to strengthen our autonomous capabilities,” she wrote.

Lucid issued a recall for more than 4,000 Gravity SUVs after discovering a problem with the seat belts.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that traffic deaths fell 6.7% to 36,640 in 2025 from the prior year. This is the second-lowest traffic fatality rate in recorded history at 1,10 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, according to the NHTSA.

All of those long TSA lines are prompting airlines to catch up and adapt. For instance, United Airlines has updated its mobile app to show TSA wait times at select airports.

The Subaru-Toyota partnership keeps cranking out EVs. At the New York Auto Show, Subaru introduced the all-electric Gateway, a three-row SUV that is essentially a rebadged Toyota Highlander EV. 

Tesla’s Q1 sales figures show its cheaper vehicles aren't helping it turn around declining sales. (Some legacy automakers have seen EV sales plummet.) That seems to have affected Tesla’s workforce numbers at its Austin, Texas, factory, which dropped 22% in 2025. Meanwhile, I riff on the changing of the guard over at Tesla (and, no, I am not referring to the string of executive departures there, although that is interesting). CEO Elon Musk shared that production of the Tesla Model S and X has ended, a milestone that marks the shift away from building cars designed for people to drive and toward robots and self-driving cars.  

Toyota's Woven Capital has appointed a new CIO and COO in a push to find the “future of mobility.”

Uber and Chinese autonomous vehicle company WeRide launched robotaxi operations without a human safety operator in Dubai as part of a broader expansion in the Middle East.

Waymo’s robotaxi service is now live at San Antonio International, its fourth major airport. Meanwhile, Wired looked at Waymo’s school bus problem (meaning the investigation into the illegal behavior of its robotaxis around school buses). The article provides new details on how the Austin School District tried to help Waymo solve the problem. It didn’t work.

One more thing …

My podcast, the Autonocast, spent some time talking with Ashu Rege, DoorDash’s VP of Autonomy. We recorded the episode prior to the Also-DoorDash announcement, which makes his comments about the company’s strategy all the more interesting. Check out the episode here.

Image credits: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation.

Waymo shared that it is now providing 500,000 paid robotaxi rides every week. That number is small compared to its human-driven ride-hailing counterparts, like Lyft and Uber. But that’s not what I found most interesting. The pace of growth in rides, new markets, and how it compares to its fleet size is what got my attention. We built a chart (which you can view below) that helps visualize the rapid scale. 

That scale, however, does create new challenges, including the inevitably of the robotaxis becoming paralyzed, like so many did during the blackout in California in December. It got us wondering, what happens when a robotaxi gets stuck — and who unsticks it? 

Senior reporter Sean O’Kane dug into Waymo’s system (which includes its own roadside assistance team), as well as at least six incidents in which first responders had to step in and manually drive the stuck Waymo. In some cases, robotaxis got stuck in the middle of an emergency: A police officer responding to a mass shooting in Austin earlier this month was diverted to first move a Waymo robotaxi out of the way. 

At its core, Sean found that when Waymo’s vehicles get stuck, the company relies on taxpayer-funded public services to move its vehicles for it.

Depending on who you talk to, this is either unacceptable, no big deal, or somewhere in between. In a recent hearing, San Francisco District 4 supervisor Alan Wong said that many of his counterparts agree that “our first responders should not be AAA.” 

For those who shrug, I would suggest they think about what’s coming.

This is not just a Waymo issue. Numerous companies are hoping to deploy paid robotaxis in the U.S. this year, including Motional and Zoox. Tesla, which has its service in Austin, has big ambitions too. Each company may have a different system with varying degrees of reliance on first responders.

A little bird

Image credits: Bryce Durbin

A little bird close to Uber recently shared a tidbit about Waymo, which the ride-hailing company has partnered with in a few cities. According to this insider, it takes up to 30% longer for a Waymo robotaxi to get somewhere compared to a human driver because of how careful the robot car needs to be and its tendency to avoid potential challenges like unprotected left turns. (Important note: I’ve been in lots of Waymos and these vehicles can absolutely handle left-hand turns, but they can be difficult and so it makes sense the robotaxis may avoid them.)

Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O'Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com. 

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Zipline, the U.S. autonomous drone delivery and logistics startup, has been around for years. Recently, its success in home delivery and continued global expansion has helped it attract even more money. 

The company said it raised another $200 million, adding to a recent funding round originally announced in January. The additional funds, which included participation from crypto investment firm Paradigm, has pushed Zipline’s recent Series H round to $800 million. Fidelity Management & Research Company, Baillie Gifford, Valor Equity Partners, and Tiger Global participated in the initial tranche that valued the drone delivery startup at $7.6 billion.

My story homes in on why the startup may have found so many interested investors. TL;DR: Its at-home delivery volume growth beat its forecast in January and February, and CEO Keller Clifton said he expects it to over the next three months, relative to 2025.

Other deals that got my attention …

NoTraffic, an Israeli traffic management software startup, raised $90 million in a Series C funding round led by PSG Equity, Axios reported.

Rivian received another $1 billion from Volkswagen Group after completing one of its milestones under a technology joint venture between the two automakers. About $750 million is coming in the form of an equity investment. The other $250 million is either equity or convertible debt, depending on which prototypes Volkswagen Group provided to Rivian for testing. (The companies did not make this immediately clear.)

Shield AI, the autonomous military aircraft maker, raised $1.5 billion in Series G funding at a $12.7 billion post-money valuation. The deal was led by PE firm Advent and a JPMorganChase investment group.

Swish, a Bengaluru-based food delivery startup, raised $38 million in a Series B round led by Hara Global and Bain Capital Ventures. Other investors included Accel, Stride Ventures, and Alteria Capital.

Uber plans to invest in Verne, the robotaxi company under Rimac Group. The undisclosed investment, which insiders tell us should be resolved in the next few months, is part of a broader deal that includes Pony.ai to bring robotaxis to Europe, starting with Zagreb, Croatia.

Notable reads and other tidbits

Image credits: Bryce Durbin

DoorDash has introduced relief payments for drivers as the Iran-U.S. war drives up gas prices.

Harbinger, the EV trucking startup, continues to add to its product roster. This time, Harbinger’s chassis will be used in emergency vehicles for 70-year-old company Frazer.

Faraday Future is in the clear with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC closed its investigation into the electric vehicle startup despite SEC staff on the case recommending an enforcement action last year.

Here’s a timely feature. Flighty, the popular flight-tracking app, released a new “Airport Intelligence” feature that gives users real-time alerts and reasons about airport disruptions, available across 14,000 airports in the world. 

Sony Honda Mobility, the joint venture between the two Japanese conglomerates, is giving up on the two Afeela-branded EVs it spent the last few years developing. I received loads of press releases and invites to see the Afeela over the years and with each passing quarter it seemed less likely it would become a reality. 

Utah’s governor signed a bill that establishes a liability framework for autonomous vehicles. 

Zoox’s purpose-built robotaxis are navigating public roads in Austin and Miami after almost two years of operating its test vehicles in the cities. The company plans to start offering rides in both locations later this year as part of its early-rider program. Note: until its gets the exemption from the feds, Zoox can’t charge for rides.

One more thing …

Here are the results to my question regarding Rivian and its R2 robotaxi deal with Uber. As a reminder, this was the setup. Rivian plans to build thousands of R2 robotaxis, including the self-driving system. Is this a distraction and too big a risk OR is it critical to the company’s long-term future?

About 55% of voters believe it’s a distraction, while 45% said the robotaxi pursuit is critical to its long-term future. 

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Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation.

If you haven’t noticed, Uber is suddenly everywhere, at least when it comes to autonomous vehicles. The company sold off Uber ATG, its in-house autonomous vehicle development unit, back in 2020. Uber shed a number of its moonshots — although it maintained an equity stake in all of them — so it could focus on its core businesses of delivery and ride-hailing. 

But Uber never gave up entirely on AVs. It’s spent the past two years locking up partnerships with dozens of autonomous vehicle technology companies across delivery, drones, trucking, and robotaxis. It has taken a worldview, too, making agreements with Chinese companies to launch robotaxis in Europe and the Middle East, as well as startups like U.K.-based Wayve. 

And now there is another one with Rivian. The TL;DR of the deal is Uber will make an initial $300 million investment in Rivian and will buy 10,000 fully autonomous R2 robotaxis ahead of a planned rollout in San Francisco and Miami in 2028. Uber has the option to buy up to 40,000 more starting in 2030. This fleet will be exclusively available on Uber’s network. 

Here’s how I am thinking about this deal. While the total deal could be as high as $1.25 billion, Uber’s initial outlay is relatively small. And the risk ratio is heavily weighted toward Rivian. It’s also the only deal that Uber has made in which the company is the developer of the self-driving system and the vehicle manufacturer. 

Rivian hasn’t started producing the R2 SUV yet, nor has it tested and deployed a self-driving system designed for robotaxis. To raise the hurdle even higher, the robotaxi is supposed to be built in Rivian’s Georgia factory, which is still under construction. 

And the EV maker has already made at least one sacrifice in hopes of pulling it off. Rivian said it no longer expects to meet its profitability goal in 2027 because of how much money it is spending on its autonomy efforts.

Are the risks too high for Rivian? Let your voice be heard in the poll below.

A little bird

Image credits: Bryce Durbin

Speaking of Uber, a little bird hinted that the ride-hailing company might have been in talks with Rivian for its robotaxi deal for quite a long time. One person directly familiar with both companies told me a deal like this wouldn’t happen overnight. After I asked for more specifics, I got a question in return: “Does RJ strike you as someone who has a strategic horizon that short?” Touché!

Got a tip for us? Contact Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or via Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O'Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com. 

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Deals!

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Like Uber, Nvidia is everywhere. Or at least wants to be. The company has made numerous investments — either direct cash injections or in-kind chip deals — in autonomous vehicle technology companies. And it’s also locking up partnerships with automakers — as we saw this week during its GTC conference — in a bid to sell its autonomous vehicle development platform called Nvidia Drive Hyperion. 

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced onstage deals — either new or expanded — with BYD, Geely, Hyundai, and Nissan for its AV development platform. GM, Mercedes-Benz, and Toyota have already signed deals with Nvidia to use the platform. 

Nvidia has been making deals with automakers for years, but the pace and specificity of AVs is worth noting.  

“The ChatGPT moment of self-driving cars has arrived. We now know we could successfully autonomously drive cars,” Huang said during his GTC keynote, noting that altogether the four automakers build 18 million cars each year.

Other deals that got my attention …

Advanced Navigation, an Australian startup developing navigation and autonomous systems, raised $110 million in a Series C funding round led by Airtree Ventures, with strategic participation from Quadrant Private Equity and the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation (NRFC).

Arc Boat Company, the Los Angeles electric boat startup, raised $50 million in a Series C funding round from Eclipse, a16z, Menlo Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, Necessary Ventures, and Offline Ventures.

BusRight, the school bus routing and technology startup, raised more than $30 million in a round led by Volition Capital.

Jeff Bezos is reportedly raising $100 billion for a new fund that will focus on buying up companies in major industrial sectors — like automotive and aerospace. The plan is to then modernize these companies using AI models developed by Bezos’ new startup Project Prometheus. 

Rivr, a Zurich-based autonomous robotics startup known for its stair-climbing delivery robot, was acquired by Amazon. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

Trevor Milton, the founder of the now-bankrupt electric truck startup Nikola who was pardoned by President Trump, is trying to raise $1 billion for AI-powered planes. 

Zenobē Energy has purchased Revolv, a San Francisco-based fleet charging startup, for an undisclosed amount. 

Notable reads and other tidbits

Image credits: Bryce Durbin

A cyberattack on U.S. vehicle breathalyzer company Intoxalock has left drivers across the United States stranded and unable to start their vehicles.

Kodiak has expanded commercial autonomous freight operations to the Dallas-El Paso corridor. This is the company's second major route and a core part of its network expansion roadmap, according to COO Michael Wiesinger.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration upgraded its investigation into the performance of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software in low-visibility conditions. The probe has now been escalated to an “engineering analysis,” its highest level of scrutiny and a required step before the agency tells a company to issue a recall. 

One more thing …

Image credits: Jay Janner / The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images

I mentioned in last week’s edition to keep an eye out for my interview with Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe. We covered a lot of ground and I found his comments about robotics particularly interesting. To summarize, Scaringe thinks companies are approaching industrial robotics all wrong. His new startup, Mind Robotics, is going to do things differently and focus more on robotic hands and steering clear of building robots that can do back flips. 

As Scaringe told me: “I think what’s missed in industrial [robotics] and this is one of the things we really see clearly, is the work happens with the hands. So, the hands are very, very important. Everything else, from a robotic system point of view, is to get the hands to the right place. And so the ability for the robots to do really complex motions, like, let’s say, like a back flip, that actually just means the robot has a lot of unnecessary complexity in it for the vast majority of tasks.” You can read the interview here.

Image credits: Kirsten Korosec

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation.  

This newsletter was wrapped and ready to go and then Travis Kalanick brought me back to 2016 by making an eyebrow-raising announcement.

Uber’s co-founder and former CEO who resigned in 2017 after a string of controversies is back and building a robotics company called Atoms. And, wait for it, he is on the precipice of acquiring Pronto, the autonomous vehicle startup focused on industrial and mining sites that was created by his former Uber colleague, Anthony Levandowski. Kalanick revealed he is already the “largest investor” in Pronto.

That is a lot to digest and the final sign that, yes, we really are back in 2016. For those who may not remember, 2016 was a hyped year for AVs. Uber acquired Levandowski’s startup Otto — a deal that went sideways almost immediately and resulted in Waymo suing the ride-hailing company for trade secret theft.

Now, back to our original programming.

Just last week I waxed on about Rivian and the EV maker’s bid to make the upcoming R2 SUV one of the fastest vehicle launches in history. ICYMI, here it is. 

This week, I’m in Austin for SXSW — the annual tech meets music meets film, TV, and comedy festival. Rivian, the headline sponsor of SXSW, used the event to share pricing and other specs of its R2. There is still a lot to unpack and I’m still interviewing folks as I write this (including CEO RJ Scaringe later today), but here is what we know. 

The performance launch edition, which will be the first version of R2 on the line, will start at $57,990. My initial article digs into what you get for that price. And senior reporter Sean O’Kane focused on the long-promised $45,000 version and why it won’t be coming until late 2027. 

My time at SXSW with the Rivian folks has begun to reveal some of their R2 strategy. The company is leaning heavily into experiential marketing targeted directly at its core market. SXSW attendees in Austin, who include well-heeled tech and creative folks from all over world, are about as close as you can get to a Rivian customer archetype. 

But will it work? The EV itself is far more approachable IMO than the much larger and expensive flagship R1 truck and SUV. The R2 also has a few items, including a new operating system, that is more powerful and capable than its pricey peer. The operating system software, which admittedly I haven’t tested at length, is a standout improvement from the R1 in terms of computing and user interface. For instance, the R2 has one SoC (system on chip) that runs the infotainment and handles 200 TOPS (tera operations per second) of computing on the edge. The next-gen R1 vehicles have four SoC and do most of the computing in the cloud. 

Rivian’s head of software, Wassym Bensaid, told me this edge computing matters because it allows the company to run large language models locally, which will provide much lower latency and better performance. 

Another big change that I will briefly mention are the “halo wheels” on the steering wheel, which are pictured above. These wheels give haptic feedback and let the driver quickly change the temperature, fan speed, and speaker volume without moving their hands or eyes over to the central screen. Chief designer Jeff Hammoud told me this addressed some of the biggest requests from customers without adding a bunch of buttons. Notably, software allows the company to add more capability to these halo wheels over time.

A little bird

Image credits: Bryce Durbin

Lucid Motors tried to make a splash at its investor day when it showed a robotaxi concept designed to be built on the company's “midsize” EV platform. Interim CEO Marc Winterhoff sounded declarative onstage, saying the company is "working on a dedicated Lucid Robotaxi" that would come after the midsize EVs debut.

The company later clarified to TechCrunch that there is no active development happening and that the vehicle is just a concept. A little bird tells us the project is very new, having started only in the last two to three months, a timeline that leaves us wondering how long it would really take for Lucid Motors to put something like this on the road.

Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O'Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com. 

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Deals!

Image credits: Bryce Durbin

I guess this is the Rivian issue! Because the company has spun ANOTHER startup and raised a bunch of money to scale it up. I’m referring to Mind Robotics, an industrial robotics lab, and its $500 million Series A funding round that was co-led by venture firms Accel and Andreessen Horowitz.

As Sean O’Kane wrote, the financing follows a $115 million seed round that was led by Eclipse (this VC really seems to be everywhere lately) in late 2025. Mind Robotics is now valued at around $2 billion. 

Robotics was a focus of some of Rivian’s programming at SXSW, including a panel with engineer and YouTuber Mark Rober and Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe. I interviewed Scaringe on the sidelines of the event and asked him about Mind Robotics and what was behind the effort. I also asked if he plans to spin out any more companies. Let’s just say there was a very long pause before he ultimately said, “Probably not.”

I will have a longer story about the interview soon, but one item worth mentioning is that Scaringe basically believes companies are thinking about the future of industrial robotics all wrong. 

“There has been a surprising emphasis on mimicking human biomechanics, or in some cases even going further, making even more complex mechatronics. I think what's missed in industrial [settings] and this is one of the things we really see clearly, is the work happens with the hands,” Scaringe told me. “So the hands are very, very important. Everything else, from a robotic system point of view, is to get the hands to the right place. And so the ability for the robots to do really complex motions, like, let's say, a back flip, that actually just means the robot has a lot of unnecessary complexity in it for the vast majority of tasks and understanding.”

Other deals that got my attention this week …

Global ride-hailing company inDrive acquired Pakistan-based quick-commerce startup Krave Mart. The all-stock deal received approval from the Competition Commission of Pakistan, allowing the companies to proceed with the transaction, two sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. inDrive confirmed the acquisition but declined to disclose its financial terms.

Mirai Robotics, an Italy-based company developing autonomous maritime systems, raised $4.2 million from Primo Capital, Techshop, and 40Jemz Ventures.

Surf Air placed an order for 25 of Beta Technologies’ all-electric ALIA aircraft and acquired options for up to 75 more.

Notable reads and other tidbits

Image credits: Bryce Durbin

Bryan Reimer, an MIT research scientist who was recently on my Autonocast podcast, poses an interesting question in a column published this month: Are automated vehicles headed for the same political divide as electric cars? 

Archer Aviation responded to a lawsuit with its own counterclaims that rival Joby Aviation allegedly defrauded the U.S. government and its competitors by falsely presenting itself as an American-made company. The electric air sector is getting litigious, which can be mighty distracting and expensive in this early stage of development.

Group14 has started production of silicon battery materials at its BAM-3 factory in South Korea. The factory is capable of producing up to 2,000 metric tons annually, enough for 10 gigawatt-hours of energy storage, or about 100,000 long-range EVs.

Hayden AI, a startup based in San Francisco, has sued its co-founder and former CEO over allegations of serious misconduct and misuse of funds. 

The Federal Aviation Administration OK’d eight pilot programs that will allow a handful of companies, including Archer Aviation, Beta Technologies, Joby Aviation, and Wisk, to start widespread electric aircraft testing as early as this summer. The three-year program will span 26 states!

Harbinger, a Los Angeles-based EV startup, revealed its second vehicle: a smaller, medium-duty work truck.

Lucid Motors is shipping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto to Gravity SUV owners.

The National Transportation Safety Board released information that shows two drivers involved in fatal crashes in 2024 while using Ford’s BlueCruise hands-free driving system were likely distracted in the moments before impact.

Nuro, the Silicon Valley-based startup backed by Nvidia, Uber, and SoftBank, is testing its autonomous vehicle technology in Japan.

Slate Auto, the EV startup backed by Jeff Bezos, has a new CEO ahead of its production launch. Former Amazon Marketplace vice president Peter Faricy now leads the company, while former CEO Christine Barman is now president of vehicles.

Tesla is now an officially licensed utility in the United Kingdom.

Wayve is teaming up with Uber and Nissan to launch a robotaxi service in Tokyo, with a pilot scheduled for late 2026.

Uber added Hyundai-owned Motional to its growing robotaxi network. Motional’s self-driving Hyundai Ioniq 5 vehicles now show up on the Uber app in Las Vegas. These vehicles have human safety monitors in the car, for now.

Zoox had a couple of announcements this week that provide a roadmap of sorts of where the Amazon-owned company wants to go. The company has started to map the streets of Dallas and Phoenix, the first step before testing its autonomous vehicles in the Sun Belt cities.

It is also partnering with Uber and will make its robotaxis available to hail on the ride-hailing app in Las Vegas later this year. That Uber tie-up deserves an important caveat, though. Zoox can’t deploy commercially until it gets an exemption from the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards for its custom-built robotaxis, which don’t have a steering wheel or other traditional controls. That process has started. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it would begin taking public comment on Zoox’s application for those exemptions. Zoox only has an exemption to demonstrate its vehicles.

One more thing …

The Chevrolet Bolt EV is coming back — a true EV deep cut. And senior reporter Tim De Chant went to a company-sponsored press drive and came back with an interesting idea that I have become more and more fixated on as an EV sales ploy. The Chevy Bolt is the McRib of the automotive world. Need I say more? De Chant also dug into the economics of GM bringing back the Bolt.