tech
December 11, 2025
The accelerator is on the floor for autonomous vehicles
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TL;DR
- Waymo is testing autonomous vehicles in Philadelphia and collecting data in Baltimore, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh.
- Uber and Avride have launched a robotaxi service in Dallas with a safety operator.
- California has released revised rules for testing and deploying self-driving trucks.
- Waymo is under investigation by NHTSA for alleged school bus passings.
- A Waymo robotaxi was involved in an incident where a cat was run over.
- Lucid Motors has seen several executive departures and layoffs in its software and electrical teams.
- Beta Technologies secured a potential 10-year, $1 billion deal to supply electric pusher motors to Eve Air Mobility.
- Beta Technologies reported a doubling of revenue but a fivefold increase in net losses for Q3.
- Autolane, an "air traffic control" for AVs startup, raised $7.4 million.
- Element Fleet Management acquired connected vehicle payments company Car IQ for an estimated $80 million.
- ExploMar, focused on electric boat propulsion, raised $10 million in Series A funding.
- Heven AeroTech, developing hydrogen-powered drones, raised $100 million in Series B funding, reaching a $1 billion+ valuation.
- Wayve, a UK self-driving startup, acquired German startup Quality Match.
- Amazon is considering building its own delivery network, potentially ending its contract with USPS.
- Tesla owners can use text-and-drive features with FSD (Supervised), despite illegality in most states.
- Nvidia announced Alpamayo-R1, an open reasoning vision language model for autonomous driving research.
- Anna Heim reported on a drone delivery partnership in Finland.
- The Trump administration proposed lowering fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks.
- A poll indicated most readers expect robotaxis to reach mass adoption before the end of the decade.
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