If you spend any amount of time online, you probably noticed that your user experience keeps getting worse.  Websites are waterlogged with autoplay ads, pop-ups, and tracking scripts. Customer service chatbots are useless, despite the promises of generative AI. Social media algorithms boost rage-bait to keep you scrolling and engaged. Dating apps hide all the […]

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Chinese ride-hail firm Didi is on the hunt for fresh funds for its autonomous vehicle technology unit that could value it at $5 billion, according to Bloomberg News. Investor interest in self-driving cars is high in China on the backs of IPOs from WeRide and Pony AI, which have a market capitalization of $4.7 billion […]

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Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is firing nearly half of a small government team that regulates autonomous vehicles, The Washington Post reported. The firings are part of a broader 10% reduction at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) as a result of firings of probationary workers and buyout offers, The Post reported, citing […]

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Road rage has been around for a while. A newer phenomenon that’s cropping up is EV charging rage — the feeling when a fellow EV owner cuts the line to grab one of the only working charge ports. It’s common enough that people posted altercations between EV drivers on social media and forums. In at […]

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Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Fifteen years ago, I started writing about a little EV startup that was trying to survive even as others failed in the clean tech boom-and-bust cycle. Back […]

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On a cool morning last November, 800 people gathered before sunrise in a South Burlington hangar to witness the maiden flight of Beta Technologies’ first electric aircraft to be built on its new scaled production line. Kyle Clark, Beta’s enigmatic founder and CEO, piloted the Alia CX300 — one of the startup’s two aircraft models […]

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Hydrogen electric trucking startup Nikola Corp. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Wednesday after it failed to find a buyer or secure additional funds to maintain operations.  Nikola was once a Silicon Valley darling, valued at $30 billion in June 2020 after it went public through a special purpose acquisition merger. But a series of […]

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When he was a senior studying at Texas A&M University, Matthew Iommi realized that there were no good options for transporting groups of people. Fellow college students heading out for the night together didn’t have access to on-demand rides with the same convenience, accessibility, and affordability of typical ride-hail platforms, like Uber and Lyft.  “Once […]

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More than 10,000 protesters gathered in New York City on Presidents’ Day to speak out against the current Trump administration and the actions in particular of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).  It was one of several protests that took place Monday in major cities across the country and came during the same long […]

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The New York Times is now allowing its product and editorial teams to use AI tools, which might one day write social copy, SEO headlines, and code, reports Semafor.  The news came to staff via an email, in which the publication announced the debut of its new internal AI summary tool called Echo. The New […]

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The Trump Administration has begun firing hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration employees who maintain critical air traffic control infrastructure, reports CNN. The firings, which began late Friday night, come as Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been tapped to help create a new air traffic control system. It’s not yet clear how many workers were fired, but the […]

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Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) is blocking links to Signal.me, a URL shortener used by the private messaging app Signal that allows users to send out a link that’s used to contact them directly through the service. The blocks, which impact direct messages, public posts, and profile pages, were first spotted by the blog Disruptionist.  […]

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Uber Eats customers in Jersey City can now have their orders delivered by one of Avride’s autonomous sidewalk delivery robots. The launch, which kicked off this week in New Jersey, is Uber’s latest foray into autonomous vehicles and represents an expanding relationship with Avride. The ride-hail and delivery giant deploys AVs on its app in […]

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May Mobility is deploying autonomous vehicles differently than its peers. Rather than operate robotaxis for individual ride-hail, May has followed a “gentle on-ramp” approach to commercialization by offering on-demand shuttles and pooled rides within campuses and along uncomplicated routes. The startup announced Wednesday the launch of its first fully driverless commercial service in Peachtree Corners, […]

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President Donald Trump has chosen Jonathan Morrison, an Apple executive, to head the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, per a Senate filing. The nomination will be reviewed and voted on by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation before being sent for a full Senate vote.  If he’s sworn in, Morrison will oversee an […]

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Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD unveiled “God’s Eye,” an advanced driver assistance system that will be install on its entire model lineup, including its $9,600 Seagull hatchback.  BYD founder Wang Chuanfu said at a live streamed event Monday that “we’re entering an era where autonomous driving is for everyone,” according to The Financial Times.  God’s […]

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Escalating geopolitical tensions and a new administration with a hawkish defense agenda has led many startups to embrace dual-use strategies to secure revenue through military applications. It’s a trend that is already heating up in aerospace.   Take Archer Aviation, a California-based startup building eVTOLs (electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles). Until very recently, Archer’s go-to-market […]

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As President Donald Trump attempts to freeze funding for a $5 billion federal EV charging infrastructure program, some states are stepping up. EV charging infrastructure startup Revel secured on Monday a $60 million loan from New York’s clean energy investment fund NY Green Bank to more than triple its current public fast-charging network in New […]

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Ride-hail giant Lyft plans to bring fully autonomous robotaxis, powered by Mobileye, to its app “as soon as 2026” in Dallas, with more markets to follow, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. The news comes a day before Lyft reports its fourth-quarter financial results, coinciding with Waymo’s preparations to launch a commercial robotaxi service with Uber in […]

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Elon Musk doesn’t want Tesla to be just an automaker. He wants Tesla to be an AI company, one that’s figured out how to make cars drive themselves.  Crucial to that mission is Dojo, Tesla’s custom-built supercomputer designed to train its Full Self-Driving (FSD) neural networks. FSD isn’t actually fully self-driving; it can perform some […]

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