The U.K.’s self-proclaimed “world-leading” regulations for self-driving cars are now official, after the Automated Vehicles (AV) Act received royal assent — the final rubber stamp any legislation must go through before becoming enshrined in law. The government says that fully self-driving vehicles could be on U.K. roads within two years. “While this doesn’t take away… Continue reading UK’s autonomous vehicle legislation becomes law, paving the way for first driverless cars by 2026
Author: Tech Crunch Online News
VCs and the military are fueling self-driving startups that don’t need roads
A new crop of early-stage startups — along with some recent VC investments — illustrates a niche emerging in the autonomous vehicle technology sector. Unlike the companies bringing robotaxis to city streets, these startups are taking their tech off-road. Two recent entrants — Seattle-based Overland AI and New Brunswick-based Potential — are poised to get… Continue reading VCs and the military are fueling self-driving startups that don’t need roads
Tesla keeps cutting jobs and the feds probe Waymo
Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! What a wild week for transportation news! It was a smorgasbord of news that seemed to touch every sector and theme in transportation, including tariffs on Chinese… Continue reading Tesla keeps cutting jobs and the feds probe Waymo
Forget EVs: Why Bedrock Materials is targeting gas-powered cars for its first sodium-ion batteries
Spencer Gore has a battery startup. But he doesn’t want his batteries to end up in electric vehicles, at least not yet. “There are a lot of interesting downmarket segments of automotive that are underserved today that are faster to get into than, say, the traction battery in EVs,” he told TechCrunch. Take the traditional… Continue reading Forget EVs: Why Bedrock Materials is targeting gas-powered cars for its first sodium-ion batteries
Uber has a new way to solve the concert traffic problem
Uber is taking a shuttle product it developed for commuters in India and Egypt and converting it for an American audience. The ride-hail and delivery giant announced Wednesday at its annual Go-Get event in New York City that it will launch a shuttle service in certain U.S. cities this summer. The service will eventually cater… Continue reading Uber has a new way to solve the concert traffic problem
Orange Charger thinks a $750 outlet will solve EV charging for apartment dwellers
Nicholas Johnson founded a company because he lost a bet. Johnson was having dinner with some investors in Lyt, a road congestion management company he had co-founded. As the dinner conversation meandered, it settled on EV charging and how best to bring it to multi-family housing. Apartment dwellers who own EVs are often left with… Continue reading Orange Charger thinks a $750 outlet will solve EV charging for apartment dwellers
Waymo’s robotaxis under investigation after crashes and traffic mishaps
Waymo’s autonomous vehicle software is under investigation after federal regulators received 22 reports of the robotaxis crashing or potentially violating traffic safety laws by driving in the wrong lane or into construction zones. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) says the probe is intended to evaluate the software and its… Continue reading Waymo’s robotaxis under investigation after crashes and traffic mishaps
Cruise founder Kyle Vogt is back with a robot startup
Kyle Vogt, the former founder and CEO of self-driving car company Cruise, has a new VC-backed robotics startup focused on household chores. Vogt announced Monday that the new startup, called the Bot Company, has raised $150 million from former GitHub CEO and investor Nat Friedman, Pioneer founder and investor Daniel Gross, Spark Capital general partner… Continue reading Cruise founder Kyle Vogt is back with a robot startup
GM’s Cruise ramps up robotaxi testing in Phoenix
Cruise has started testing its autonomous vehicles in Phoenix, with plans to begin “supervised” driving in the city more than six months after the GM self-driving subsidiary halted its driverless operations across the United States. Cruise announced Monday in a blog post that it will begin testing two vehicles in autonomous mode on public roads… Continue reading GM’s Cruise ramps up robotaxi testing in Phoenix
Tesla’s profitable Supercharger network is in limbo after Musk axed the entire team
At the start of the year, Tesla’s Supercharger team was tasked with the impossible. “We were on an exponential path,” a former team member told TechCrunch, adding that the new targets were “super-duper crazy.” Despite the bottlenecks that such expectations can create, “every time they upped the metric, we met it.” Then, one day in… Continue reading Tesla’s profitable Supercharger network is in limbo after Musk axed the entire team