What You Need to Know Today

Uber is back on the AV warpath. Days after revealing that Cruise robotaxis and Coco sidewalk delivery robots will soon join the app, the ride-hail giant announced a strategic investment in Wayve, a UK startup that specializes in self-learning, Tesla-style systems for autonomous driving, to develop self-driving vehicles.  

Former AV skeptic Azeem Azhar estimates that Waymo’s share of the San Francisco ride-hail market is “close to the tipping point of an S-curve of adoption of 6%.”

Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police are turning to footage captured by Teslas' outward-facing cameras to solve cases. Meanwhile San Francisco police are using ALPR-equipped drones to help track down car thieves.

Tesla has (belatedly) launched new feature that allows vehicles to navigate parking lots autonomously without a driver aboard.

Hamburg is trying to solve stagnant traffic with autonomous shuttles. The German city is piloting a mobility service with self-driving minibuses that can be summoned via an app. The initial phase will feature a fleet of up to 20 vans, but the city hopes to launch as many as 10,000 vehicles by 2030.

And in Atlanta, Glydways won a contract to test their autonomous microtransit system. The pilot program will see tiny driverless shuttles carry passengers along a key route via a dedicated six-foot-wide lane.

How do you define a software-defined vehicle? Some experts want to establish a 1-5 system for categorizing advances in SDV tech, inspired by autonomous cars.

Related: When an EV maker goes bankrupt, do their software-enabled vehicles simply go offline? In some cases, yes. “Richard Qian didn’t know what to expect when he heard that WM Motor, a Shanghai-based EV maker popular for its low prices, filed for bankruptcy in October 2023. He tried to drive his compact EX5 SUV as he normally would, but discovered that he could no longer log into WM Motor’s smartphone app, which remotely controlled the car lock and air conditioner. He also couldn’t see his car’s mileage and charging status on the dashboard.”

Inside XPeng's Mona 03, the only car with advanced driverless tech that sells for less than $28,000.

Serve Robotics, a company that develops delivery robots that are capable of driving autonomously on the sidewalk, secured $20M through a private placement and an additional $15M by exercising existing warrants.

California is once again trying to require autonomous trucks to have human operators aboard.

Inceptio Technology, a self-driving tech company, has delivered 400 autonomous trucks to a customer in China, reportedly the largest order of its kind ever fulfilled.

Tesla deleted an old blog post stating that all its cars have “full self-driving hardware.”

Meanwhile Tesla isn’t taking any chances—and trying to conjure a bit of Hollywood magic—for the reveal of its robotaxi project on October 10th.

But can Tesla avoid getting caught up in the fight between China and the US over AV technology? So far the company has been threading the needle, becoming the only foreign automaker to meet China’s automobile data security standards.

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