Welcome again to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for information and insights on the way forward for transportation. Join right here without cost — 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 no less than 50 miles or extra — keep protected on the market. The entire e-newsletter returns subsequent week.
I’ve one vital announcement earlier than I sprinkle in a bit of stories. TechCrunch Mobility is transferring 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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Slightly chook
You might recall final week, a New York Instances article reported that Uber co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick is working with buyers to purchase the U.S. arm of Chinese language autonomous car 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 transferring over to Uber in 2015. He finally grew to become 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 current 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 enough to perpetuate a story of progress.
One doable instance: Tesla let a Mannequin Y SUV drive roughly 15 miles from its manufacturing unit to the condominium complicated the place the automotive’s new proprietor lives, finishing what CEO Elon Musk known as the primary “autonomous supply” of a buyer automotive. If it is a one-off, aka an indication, then it’s an MVAT.
This isn’t simply to choose on Tesla, by the way in which. 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 taking pictures 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 subject month-to-month reviews, 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 dwelling EV-charging tools.
The tip of the EV tax credit score is already rippling by way of the trade, 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 mirror 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 based mostly in Detroit, delivered its new electrical van, known as the G3, to its first buyer.
Safety
The FBI and cybersecurity corporations are warning that the prolific hacking group often called 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 non-public info of no less than 6 million passengers.
