Tag: robotaxi

TechCrunch Mobility: A robotaxi ultimatum

Posted on by faz_business


Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for the future of transportation and now, more than ever, how AI is playing a part. To get this in your inbox, sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility!

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

blinky cat bird green
Image Credits:Bryce Durbin

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.

Deals!

money the station
Image Credits:Bryce Durbin

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

Image Credits:Bryce Durbin

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.

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The final days of the Tesla Model X and S are here. All bets are on the Cybercab.

Posted on by faz_business


It’s been looming for weeks, but now the end is near: Just a few hundred Tesla Model S and Model X vehicles remain unsold. Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed this week in a post on X that custom orders of the Model S sedan and Model X SUV are over. “All that’s left are some in inventory,” he wrote.

Musk first announced Tesla’s plan to end Model S and Model X production back in January. And the data helps explain why.

Sales of the Tesla Model X and Model S have fallen steadily over the years as the company’s high volume and cheaper entries — the Model 3 and Model Y — took over. Tesla doesn’t separate S and X sales, instead combining them under “other models,” a category that now includes the Cybertruck. And those combined figures show S and X sales peaking in 2017 at 101,312 vehicles before declining to 50,850 vehicles (including Cybertruck) in 2025 — a fraction of the 1.63 million vehicles it delivered globally last year.

In other words, their deaths were inevitable. What comes next is a bit more complicated.

Musk isn’t filling the void left by the Model X and Model S with a traditional EV; he ditched plans to produce a lower-cost EV that was expected to be priced around $25,000. Instead, Musk is placing his bets on the Optimus robot, which has yet to go into production, and the Cybercab, an all-electric two-seater autonomous vehicle that was first shown as a concept in 2024.

Tesla plans to build Optimus robots at its Fremont, California, factory once production of the Model S and Model X end, which could be any day now that final orders have been taken. Musk has said Tesla will begin producing the Cybercab this month at its factory in Austin, Texas. 

A look back

The Model S and X EVs have taken a backseat to the more affordable Model 3 and Model Y vehicles. But their debuts, and initial sales, marked two critical moments in Tesla’s colorful and often volatile history. The Model S launched in 2012 as its first volume EV. Its popularity not only changed how consumers viewed EVs, it prompted legacy automakers — long dismissive of the value of electric vehicles — to take notice.

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The Model X followed in fall 2015 and was famously described by Musk as the faberge egg of EVs.

“I think we got more carried away with the X,” Musk said in a September 2015 press interview attended by this reporter just an hour before Tesla’s Model X delivery event began. “I’m not sure anyone should make this car.”

The Model X was often delayed, and initially criticized for its complexity. But it ultimately introduced the company to a new market: women.

The Model X raised Tesla’s profile, and it set the company up for its next big move: an affordable mass produced EV. The Model 3 had a difficult start, but it ended up catapulting Tesla into the mainstream. The Model Y clinched its status, helping Tesla widen the gap as the top-selling EV producer globally until China’s BYD took over that top global EV sales spot in 2025 when it delivered 2.26 million EVs.

Tesla continues to sell thousands of Model 3 and Model Y, but its growth has stalled, and even reversed. The company reported in January that it sold 1.69 million vehicles in 2025, a decrease for the second year in a row. Its efforts to boost sales with cheaper, stripped-down versions of the Model 3 and Model Y that were introduced in October have had a modicum of success, according to first-quarter 2026 figures that were reported April 2.

Tesla delivered 358,023 EVs globally in the first three months of the year, about 6% more than the same period in 2025, which also happened to be the company’s worst quarter in years. The figure was below analysts’ expectations of around 368,000.

But never mind that. In Musk’s view — one which he is well compensated for — Tesla isn’t an automaker or a sustainable energy company, as he has described it before. Tesla is an AI company and his new gambit goes all in on that mission.

Cybercab risks

The Optimus robot is one part of the Tesla AI effort. But its perhaps the Cybercab that best embodies, and exposes the risks of, the company’s AI-first campaign.

The Cybercab was designed to be used as an autonomous vehicle without traditional controls like a steering wheel or pedals — meaning once it launches it will be without the initial backup of human safety operator.

The first Cybercab rolled off the Tesla factory assembly line in February and is supposed to go into mass production this month. Although that date could slip, as so many have in Tesla’s history.

Unlike Tesla’s previous vehicles, the challenges aren’t in its production (who can forget the production hell of the Model 3). Instead, it faces a major regulatory hurdle before it can ever hit the road. Federal motor vehicle safety standards place requirements on vehicles such as having a steering wheel and pedals. There is no evidence that Tesla has applied for an exemption, according to publicly available files with the Federal Register and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The vehicles will also rely on Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software to navigate public streets and safely shuttle passengers to their destination. Despite improvements to FSD and limited driverless robotaxi tests in Austin, Tesla has not yet demonstrated that its software can operate reliably at scale.

And that piece requires more than technical mastery. Robotaxi operations are also tricky. And in states like California, they also require permit to deploy and charge for rides in driverless vehicles.

Zoox, the autonomous vehicle company owned by Jeff Bezos’ Amazon, may end up clearing a path for Tesla and its Cybercab. Zoox received an exemption from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that allows the company to demonstrate its custom-built robotaxis, which lack pedals or a steering wheel, on public roads. Zoox is now going through a public process to have that exemption extended to commercial operations.

Musk tried to sell shareholders on why the risk was worth it during the company’s earnings call in January.

“The vast majority of miles traveled will be autonomous in the future,” Musk said at the time, later noting that the CyberCab is super optimized for minimum cost per mile and also for a much higher duty cycle. “I would say probably less than I’m just guessing, but probably less than 5% of miles driven will be where somebody’s actually driving the car themselves in the future, maybe as low as 1%.”



A little-known Croatian startup is coming for the robotaxi market with help from Uber

Posted on by faz_business


Mate Rimac, the founder of Croatian electric vehicle maker Rimac Group, started working on electric robotaxis seven years ago. Now, part of his vision is coming to fruition through a strategic partnership between Uber, Chinese autonomous vehicle company Pony.ai, and his own robotaxi startup Verne.

The three companies announced plans Thursday to launch a commercial robotaxi service in Europe, starting in Zagreb, Croatia. Pony.ai will supply the autonomous driving system and a robotaxi called the Arcfox Alpha T5 that was developed with Chinese automaker BAIC. Verne will own and operate the fleet, and Uber will provide its vast ride-hailing network.

The ride-hailing giant also indicated it intends to invest an undisclosed amount into Verne and support future expansion as a strategic partner.

The companies didn’t provide a specific launch date for the commercial service, though on-road testing in Zagreb — where Rimac Group is based — is already underway.

Verne doesn’t have the same name recognition as Waymo or Tesla — at least not in the United States. But it has the same outsized ambitions.

Verne started in 2019 as a project called Project 3 Mobility (or P3) within Rimac Group, a growing ecosystem of companies that includes hypercar maker Rimac Bugatti, Rimac Energy, and Rimac Technology. Mate Rimac holds a 23% stake in the group.

There were occasional updates about the project, but it wasn’t until July 2024 — when Verne launched with 100 million euros in funding — that the public got a more detailed look at its plans.

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Rimac’s vision has always been for Verne to operate an urban robotaxi service with purpose-built two-seater electric vehicles. That might sound like an odd mission for the person behind the Nevera, an electric hypercar that starts around $2.2 million. But as he explained to this reporter a couple of years ago, Rimac was never interested in making a high-volume EV that humans would drive — precisely because he believes that autonomous vehicle technology will make that business obsolete.

“It will take a while, but it’s coming; I’m sure about that,” he’d told me at the time.

Verne isn’t developing its own self-driving system. Instead, the company is focused on the urban electric vehicle, the ride-hailing app, and the back-end infrastructure to manage the fleet, including cleaning and maintenance.

Verne plans to produce its robotaxi EVs at a new factory in Lučko, Croatia, expected to begin operations later this year.

Verne hasn’t launched the two seaters yet, nor did it provide an update on the vehicles in its announcement with Uber and Pony.ai. The company said in November that it had produced and tested 60 verification prototypes.

For now, the Verne robotaxi service will use the Pony.ai-BAIC vehicle, the Arcfox Alpha T5. Users will be able to hail one via Uber as well as through Verne’s own app.

Verne is starting small with its commercial launch, but it has plans to scale to a “fleet of thousands of robotaxis over the next few years,” according to Thursday’s announcement. And its aspirations go far beyond the borders of Zagreb, the capital of Croatia and home to Rimac Group.

“Europe needs autonomous mobility that can move from testing to a real service,” said Verne CEO Marko Pejkovic, in a statement. “At Verne, we are bringing together the technology, platform, and operational capabilities required to make this a reality, starting in Zagreb before expanding to new markets.”

Waymo issues recall after one its self-driving taxis crashed into a pole

Posted on by faz_business


Waymo is voluntarily recalling its robotaxis after one of them collided with a telephone pole in an alley enroute to pick up a passenger, The Verge reported. The vehicle was unoccupied and no bystanders were injured.

At the time of the May 21st accident, the Waymo vehicle went through an alley lined with telephone poles mounted at street level rather than on a curb, with a yellow line showing where to drive. While pulling over, it struck one of the poles at 8 MPH and sustained some damage, Waymo said.

“It never made it to pick us up,” the passenger waiting for the car, Jericka Mitchell, told 12News. Mitchell reportedly heard, but didn’t see the accident.

The company filed a recall with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) after updating the software in its entire self-driving fleet of 672 vehicles. The update is designed to fix an error that assigned a low damage score to the pole and failed to account for the alleyway’s hard edge.

It’s only Waymo’s second recall. The first happened earlier this year when two of its autonomous vehicles crashed into the same pickup truck that was being towed. In that one, Waymo found that its software failed to predict the movements of the vehicle due to “persistent orientation mismatch” between the towed vehicle and the one towing it.

Waymo is also under investigation for more than 24 incidents including crashes and traffic violations. Rival Cruise, owned by GM, was involved in a more serious incident last year, wherein one of its robotaxis accidentally dragged someone hit by another vehicle a few dozen feet down a San Francisco street. California then suspended its license to operate in the state and Cruise eventually paused all robotaxi operations