Browsing: Transportation

Maybe it was the grey color, the slightly bulbous roofline, or the vaguely SUV-like proportions of the electric Porsche Macan, but as I shuttled kids and groceries around city and suburban streets,I never once noticed a longing stare from other drivers. Unlike with other cars I’ve tested, no enthusiasts stopped to ask me questions.

Alphabet’s self-driving car unit, Waymo, is expanding into Canada after receiving approval to participate in Ontario’s automated vehicle pilot program.

Tesla just revealed its redesigned second-generation Roadster with SpaceX thrusters, a vehicle he has called “the best of the last of the human-driven cars.”

Volvo is leveling up its automated driving system through an expansion of its nearly decade-long partnership with Nvidia. The companies announced on Thursday that Volvo will use three pieces of Nvidia hardware and software in its future vehicles to provide an automated driving system that can navigate urban streets and highways.

Rivian recently rolled out an AI assistant that lets drivers and passengers interact with the company’s electric vehicles just by talking to them. But the carmaker’s founder and CEO, RJ Scaringe, said at TechCrunch Disrupt this week that, in the future, Rivian’s cars will be able to run AI agents made by other companies like…

Doug Field has worked on EVs at Ford and Tesla, the not-so-secret car project at Apple, and was employee No. 1 at Segway. Now the executive is turning his attention to Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe’s latest project: Mind Robotics.

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for the future of transportation and now, more than ever, the role AI is playing in it. To get this in your inbox, sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility!

Waymo, the autonomous vehicle technology company under Google parent Alphabet, closed a $5 billion loan from a series of high-profile lenders, including PIMCO, Blackstone, and Sixth Street.

The railroad industry was one of the first to disrupt how the world worked with technology, but lately, innovation in freight railroading has amounted to little more than longer and longer trains.

When Justin Kosmides co-founded Bloom in 2023, his goal was to create a savior for the mobility industry. He had seen many e-bike and e-scooter companies fail because of an inability — or an unwillingness — to outsource some of the hardest problems, like logistics, manufacturing, or building a supply chain. He wanted to convince…