Happy Friday and welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your central source for news, analysis, and exclusive scoops on the future of transportation.
I was disappointed to miss Monterey Car Week this year, especially with the number of exciting reveals I was interested in. These included the all-electric Cadillac Opulent Velocity, the Chevrolet Corvette CX and CX.R Vision Gran Turismo concepts, and the Lucid Gravity X. Unfortunately, the sprawling, Champagne-soaked grounds of Quail and the sea of seersucker suits at Pebble Beach Golf Course were not ideal landscapes for my newly fractured and boot-encased foot. I look forward to attending next year.
In the meantime, I wanted to reach out to you, the reader, for your forecast on what is in store for automakers and EV sales in the United States once the federal EV tax credit expires on September 30. My own prediction is that automakers will have to take significant short-term action to attract customers, and not solely because of the expiring credit.
Serve Robotics, the autonomous sidewalk delivery robot company, announced this week that it has acquired Vayu Robotics, a startup that has developed AI foundation models and a simulation-powered data engine for robots. The companies did not disclose the terms of the deal, but based on some back-of-the-envelope math and a tip, it has been determined that Serve Robotics paid between 45 and 50 million dollars for Vayu.
Several weeks ago, a deal between Uber, autonomous vehicle tech startup Nuro, and EV maker Lucid was highlighted. A key point to remember is Uber’s commitment to make an undisclosed multimillion-dollar investment into Nuro. Sources indicate this investment is larger than the 300 million dollars Uber invested in Lucid.
Nuro has now raised more money in a Series E round that has reached 203 million dollars from a group of new investors that includes Nvidia, existing backer Baillie Gifford, Icehouse Ventures, Kindred Ventures, and Pledge Ventures. A portion of Uber’s investment has gone toward this Series E round.
Other notable deals include ARK Invest, Cathie Wood’s firm, investing approximately 12.9 million dollars in the Chinese autonomous driving firm Pony.ai. Aerospace startup Grid Aero raised 6 million dollars in seed funding from Calibrate Ventures and Ubiquity Ventures. Battery materials startup Group14 raised 463 million dollars in a funding round led by battery manufacturer SK with participation from ATL, Lightrock, Microsoft, Porsche, and OMERS. The company also announced it had acquired full ownership of a joint venture with SK in South Korea.
Oway, a company founded in 2023 and backed by Y Combinator and General Catalyst, recently closed a 4 million dollar seed round. The company plans to build a decentralized “Uber for freight.” In an update on the Via IPO, Renaissance Capital estimates Via could raise up to 500 million dollars.
In other industry news, Hertz will start selling preowned vehicles on Amazon Autos. Redwood Materials announced it is working with Caterpillar to recycle the battery packs from the company’s battery-electric underground loaders. Tesla is planning to introduce in-car voice-assistant functions powered by DeepSeek and ByteDance’s Doubao artificial intelligence.
The Routing Company, a startup that helps transit agencies match riders with vehicles, has landed Zoox as its first robotaxi client. Zoox will purchase a nonexclusive license for the company’s technology and bring five of the startup’s engineers on board to advance its robotaxi service. Volkswagen faces a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of New Jersey over the capacitive buttons on the steering wheels of its cars, including the ID.4. The lawsuit alleges the buttons are too sensitive and too easy to activate unintentionally.
Waymo has been granted a permit to test its autonomous vehicles in New York City, the first such approval granted by the city. The company plans to start testing immediately. In the world of drone delivery, Zipline has partnered with Chipotle for a new service to fly digital orders to guests in the greater Dallas area.
Vanity Fair has published a lengthy feature on Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana that explores her past, her management style, and what the author describes as her un-Elon approach. It is a worthwhile read and serves as a reminder that Mawakana will be on stage at Disrupt 2025, which will be held from October 27 to 29 in San Francisco.