What You Need to Know Today

While all eyes were on California’s AI law last week, governor Gavin Newsom quietly blocked two other bills that would have restricted a different form of artificial intelligence: autonomous driving. Siding in favor of AV companies, Newsom vetoed one bill (AB 2286) that would have banned self-driving trucks, and another (AB 3061) that would have created new data reporting requirements for driverless-tech firms.

Uber announced a deal to bring WeRide’s robotaxis onto its platform in Abu Dhabi. The alliance with WeRide represents yet another high-profile AV partnership for the ride-hail giant, which recently announced collaborations with Cruise, Waymo, Wayve, and others to expand its self-driving offerings.

Tesla is sending out invites for its robotaxi launch on October 10th with the tag line “we robot.” At this point it seems unlikely that the event, which was initially supposed to take place in August, will be postponed again. Buckle up! (Elsewhere in Teslaland, Cybertruck now has FSD driver-assistance capabilities.)

The feds slapped a $1.5M fine on Cruise, GM’s self-driving division, for hiding the details of a pedestrian-dragging incident in San Francisco last year.

Ford is slashing prices for its hands-free driver-assist system. An annual subscription for BlueCruise will now cost $495, down from $800, while a monthly subscription will cost $49.99, down from $75.

Serve Robotics and Wing are teaming up to trial robot-to-drone delivery in Dallas. The symbiotic relationship will see Serve bots pick up orders in dense urban areas that are not accessible to drones, then bring them a short distance to Wing pickup points.

Bot Auto, a Houston-based AV trucking startup that was begun by ex-TuSimple founders, has raised $20M in pre-A funding. The round was led by Brightway Future Venture.

Germany’s Vay is partnering with UAE startup Bayanat to expand operations of remotely controlled vehicles in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia-Pacific.

Related: Consumers prefer remote (65%) to autonomous (58%) driving, according to a new McKinsey survey, because they feel remote-driving tech is safer and better able to handle unexpected situations.

VP Kamala Harris’s motorcade got stuck behind a stalled Waymo robotaxi in San Francisco.

Polestar is opening an IT center in India to develop vehicle software across several verticals, including ADAS.

On the latest episode of the Ride AI podcast, Ed Niedermeyer sits down with Anuja Sonalker, CEO of autonomous-parking startup Steer Tech, to discuss a lesser-known success story in mobility tech. Founded in 2016, Steer Tech specializes in low-speed, L4 autonomous vehicle operations within geofenced areas like parking lots and depots. And unlike many companies in the AV space, Steer Tech avoided big venture capital funding, forcing the team to stay lean and attain cashflow positivity. Listen to the full episode here.

EHang took to the skies for its first pilotless air taxi flight in Brazil.

Seoul is getting its first nighttime robotaxi service.

“Trojan cars,” or why the White House is worried about Chinese smart cars collecting data on US soil.

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