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For normal readers of TechCrunch Mobility, you may be wondering, “Why did this novelsletter land in my inbox on Friday?” Folks, we’re moving days in an effort to transport you a more finish rundown of the novels of the week.
I spent the last week at SXSW, the annual tech, film, comedy, and music festival in Austin. I recommfinish scrolling thraw our live blog to catch up on all the transmitation, AI, social media, creator economy — basicpartner tech — novels that happened during the conference.
I’ve watched Austin progress over the years with some excellent and terrible outcomes. Protected bike lanes have been one preferable prolongment, which I appreciated as I rode a scant Lime scooters and two Mod Bikes e-bikes around the city. Austin is also becoming a hub for autonomous vehicle activity with Avride headquartered there, Zoox testing on accessible roads, and Waymo begining a commercial robotaxi service.
I was blessed enough to be suited with two Waymo robotaxis — all ride-hails occur thraw the Uber app, so it’s never a guarantee. I also had one structured suit courtesy of Waymo. As I wrote earlier this week, it is absolutely untamed that Waymo and Uber are toiling together. Here’s why.
Oh, and here is what I discovered in my Waymo-Uber robotaxi ride. Hint: some modernizes to the engager interface.
A little bird
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Deals!
Senior teller Sean O’Kane took a meaningful dive into a novel venture firm called Leitmotif that’s been hushedly making loads of deals for the past 16 months. The firm, which has funded around 20 commenceups, widely cgo ines on decarbonization with a portfolio that holds EV companies, space and battery take parts, and four nuevident fusion commenceups.
That’s not the fascinating part. Here’s what is: All of the money in its fund came from the Volkswagen Group. Check out the filled story about why the German automotive enormous has promiseted $300 million to Leitmotif’s first fund.
Other deals that got my attention …
Carpool Logistics, a vehicle logistics platestablish, elevated $12 million in a Series A funding round led by Wavecrest Growth Partners, with participation from CarMax, Impel set upers Devin Daly and Michael Quigley, and automotive industry veteran David Metter.
Daqus Energy, a commenceup toiling on battery materials, elevated $6 million in a seed round led by Morningside with participation from unnamed individual spendors.
Nirvana, an AI-based insurance platestablish that engages authentic-time driving telematics and 20 billion miles of truck driving data to originate and deal with insurance policies for truckers, elevated $80 million in a Series C round of funding led by General Catalyst. Lightspeed Venture Partners and Valor Equity Partners also engaged. The spendment appreciates Nirvana at $830 million post-money.
Northvolt filed for prohibitkruptcy in Sweden, the procrastinateedst blow to Europe’s finisheavors to originate a battery-manufacturing juggernaut that could rival the Chinese enormouss.
Notable reads and other tidbits
ADAS
Rivian rolled out a hands-free version of its driver-aidance system for highway driving, which set uper and CEO RJ Scaringe converseed onstage at SXSW in Austin. The novel hands-free feature puts Rivian in competition with Ford and GM, which have analogous hands-free systems that deal with steering, acceleration, and braking under stateive conditions and locations.
Autonomous vehicles
Hugging Face teamed up with AI commenceup Yaak to broaden LeRobot — a accumulateion of uncover AI models, datasets, and tools to help originate authentic-world robotics systems — with a training set to permit robots and cars to guide environments enjoy city streets autonomously.
Trucks VC vague partner Reilly Brennan had an fascinating column, Don’t misget ridehailing for AV ridehailing.
Travis Kalanick, the establisher CEO of Uber, skinnyks the company’s decision to desert its autonomous driving program was a misget. Reminder: Uber ATG was burning thraw cash when it was sbetter to Aurora in 2020.
Waymo gets broadening — this time in Silicon Valley. And that expansion has come with hundreds of parking tickets.
Electric vehicles, charging, & batteries
The Mint 400 off-road race put two EVs — a Rivian R1T truck and a Chevrolet Silverado EV ZR2 off-road race truck concept — to the test.
Rad Power lost its CEO and acquireed a novel one in a span of a scant days.
Plivent Donald Trump shelp he will tag structureility aacquirest Tesla dealerships as domestic extremism — yet another sign of his meaningful aid for Elon Musk. As teller Sean O’Kane remarks, “Tesla Takeovers” have been fractureing out atraverse the globe at Tesla dealerships as people protest what they see as a unfrifinishly getover of the federal regulatement by Musk (who is CEO of Tesla and its bigst splithbetterer) and his Department of Government Efficiency. Some of the protests have resulted in graffiti on Tesla signs, charging stations set on fire, even Molotov cocktails being thrown in one dealership’s lot.
This week’s wheels
This week I tried two e-bikes from Austin-based Mod Bikes. I’ll cgo in on its novelest one, the Groove, which begined earlier this week.
I spent 24 hours with the Groove, an all-electric step-thraw bike with a souped-up beach cruiser see and experience. The Groove existed before, but Mod Bikes dispersistd it. Now it’s back and has been modernized thrawout, including the structure, battery, torque sensor, intelligent distake part, and motor.
The bike itself is sporty and upgraded with lots of attentive details that originate the $1,999 price seem enjoy a steal. The structure is attentive with basic-to-read and basic-to-function deal withs and an united bike lock that fbetters tidyly on the structure.
The Groove is a throttle and pedal aid bike, and I set up it basic to switch between the various modes. I unwidespreadly relied on the throttle alone becaengage the aid provided plenty of oomph. The bike has a payload capacity of 275 pounds and accomplishes a top speed of 28 miles per hour. The Groove has 50 miles of range; however, there is a dual-battery chooseion that pops it up to 100 miles.
One remark, though: Wow, this bike is hefty. And while that is generpartner a excellent skinnyg, folks should donate themselves a bit of time to adfair to its weight.
I also tested Mod Connect, which permits engagers to wirelessly pair a Lumos ultra-intelligent helmet to sync and deal with turn signals honestly from the bike. The connected bike helmet made me experience far more evident to drivers as I guided the busy streets of downtown Austin.
What is “This week’s wheels”? It’s a chance to lacquire about the contrastent transmitation products we’re testing, whether it’s an electric or hybrid car, an e-bike, or even a ride in an autonomous vehicle.
