Welcome again to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for information and insights on the way forward for transportation. Enroll right here free of charge — simply click on TechCrunch Mobility!
This week I’m publishing an abbreviated model of the e-newsletter due to the 4th of July vacation. In case you’re driving, flying, or taking the practice for the U.S. vacation — which AAA initiatives 72.2 million folks will journey at the least 50 miles or extra — keep protected on the market. The entire e-newsletter returns subsequent week.
I’ve one necessary announcement earlier than I sprinkle in a bit of stories. TechCrunch Mobility is shifting to the Beehiiv publishing platform in a couple of weeks. Beehiiv offers a lot of cool options — like polls! — to assist me higher interact with you, the reader. It’s a win for you and me.
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A little bit hen
It’s possible you’ll recall final week, a New York Instances article reported that Uber co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick is working with traders to purchase the U.S. arm of Chinese language autonomous automobile firm Pony AI, and Uber would possibly even assist make it occur.
A number of little birds inform me Kalanick ally and Uber ATG veteran Eric Meyhofer is concerned. We’re poking round to be taught extra. Within the meantime, here’s a little historical past lesson. Meyhofer was with the Nationwide Robotics Engineering Middle at Carnegie Mellon College earlier than formally shifting over to Uber in 2015. He ultimately turned CEO of Uber ATG, the self-driving unit that was later bought off to Aurora. Meyhofer has been linked to Kalanick’s CloudKitchens enterprise by way of a restaurant automation and robotics enterprise known as Lab37, which was initially reported by the Spoon again in 2023.
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Notable reads and different tidbits
Autonomous autos
A catchy new time period was coined throughout a latest recording of the Autonocast, the podcast I co-host with Alex Roy and Ed Niedermeyer (full credit score goes to Roy). The time period is MVAT, or minimal viable autonomy theater — when firms deploy the minimal viable autonomy product adequate to perpetuate a story of progress.
One doable instance: Tesla let a Mannequin Y SUV drive roughly 15 miles from its manufacturing facility to the condominium advanced the place the automotive’s new proprietor lives, finishing what CEO Elon Musk known as the primary “autonomous supply” of a buyer automotive. If this can be a one-off, aka an illustration, then it’s an MVAT.
This isn’t simply to select on Tesla, by the best way. Many different firms have posted flashy movies to showcase the capabilities of their respective automated driving expertise. Nevertheless it was a much more frequent apply in 2015 — as AVs had been capturing as much as the highest of the hype cycle.
Electrical autos, batteries, & charging
The second quarter has ended and meaning gross sales and manufacturing numbers! Whereas many automakers situation month-to-month experiences, a few of the EV firms we monitor solely present quarterly numbers.
The electrical Hummer is sort of outselling the F-150 Lightning
Lucid gross sales inch ahead as EV maker pushes to ramp Gravity manufacturing
Rivian receives the subsequent $1B from Volkswagen as gross sales struggles proceed
Tesla faces second straight 12 months of falling gross sales after one other dangerous quarter
In the meantime, Republican legislators handed a reconciliation act that, amongst different issues, unwinds a lot of the Inflation Discount Act, together with that photo voltaic, wind, and clear hydrogen will all lose incentives beneath the brand new invoice. EV tax credit are additionally eradicated for brand spanking new and used electrical autos and the set up of house EV-charging gear.
The top of the EV tax credit score is already rippling by way of the business, together with firms that don’t even have an EV but to promote. Slate Auto, the Jeff Bezos-backed EV startup, was planning to promote a pickup truck for lower than $20,000 with the EV tax credit score utilized. However the language on its web site has modified to replicate the invoice’s passage.
Additionally a bit of stories from the world of electrical RVs and vans … Pebble, the California-based startup we’ve written about earlier than, has began buyer deliveries of its flagship all-electric journey trailer. And Grounded, the startup based by former SpaceX engineers and primarily based in Detroit, delivered its new electrical van, known as the G3, to its first buyer.
Safety
The FBI and cybersecurity companies are warning that the prolific hacking group often known as Scattered Spider is now focusing on airways and the transportation sector.
Qantas, the Australian airline big, stated it skilled an information breach that compromised the private data of at the least 6 million passengers.
