This week’s edition is brought to you by Terawatt – purpose-built charging for autonomous vehicle fleets.
Top Story of the Week
Bolt picks NVIDIA’s Alpamayo Stack to drive its European robotaxis (link).
Related: How NVIDIA Alpamayo Is Accelerating Autonomous Driving with Matt Cragun (link).
Alphabet’s Waymo plans first Canada robotaxi service in Toronto in 2028 (link, no paywall).
‘Today marks an exciting global milestone for Waymo: we are officially laying the groundwork to bring our autonomous, all-electric, ride-hailing service to Spain, beginning with the Region of Madrid’ (link). Waymo is really on a tear with expansion right now. Exciting times for the industry.
DC vs AVs
Despite rising backlash, D.C. robotaxi bill set for council vote (link).
Allen's bill, introduced last April, would propose several guardrails, like initially setting a 200-vehicle limit for robotaxi operators and waiting until 2028 to begin the commercial rollout. Notably, the bill would charge companies a "vehicle miles traveled" fee. Its proceeds would help support rideshare drivers facing job displacement and funding Metro.
‘The Mayor’s Office has denied The Washington Sun’s appeal for DDOT data showing how many times AVs have crashed while testing here. The good news is that Waymo gave us the data D.C. won’t..’ (link). Well isn’t this ironic? Cities are constantly demanding more transparency from AV companies, but in this case Waymo was more transparent than D.C. itself. D.C. really seems to be mishandling the AV issue from multiple angles.
Group fighting to block Waymo in D.C. has mysterious origin, backers (link, no paywall). This seems a bit shady. Obviously, folks are free to protest robotaxis, but I do think we should know who’s behind those efforts.
The organizer was the People First Transportation Alliance… The group operates in Philadelphia and New York, according to its website, and describes itself as a “national coalition” that opposes robotaxis because of concerns about job loss and public safety. The Transportation Alliance lists 13 individuals and organizations as “founding members” on its website. But four of them told The Washington Post they are not.
“People First Transportation Alliance”? Did they have to pick the most communist name possible? 😂 (link)
‘New: A poll backed by some of the anti-Waymo labor unions finds 58 percent of DC voters opposed to AVs and 22 percent in support’ (link).
Related: Every City Comes Around on Robotaxis Once the Rides Start (link).
Other Stuff
Walmart drone deliveries take flight in Charlotte area, raising privacy, safety questions (link).
Walmart has launched drone delivery service at seven locations in the Charlotte area… The service is operated by Wing, a drone delivery company that says its aircraft are designed to navigate autonomously and deliver packages quickly while minimizing risks to people on the ground.
Scoop: Bedrock Robotics raising $600M to automate construction (link, no paywall).
Wayve, Stellantis and Nvidia partner on autonomy in France (link).
GM targets ‘eyes-off’ autonomous driving for pickups, SUVs (link, no paywall).
Tesla is prepping a Cybercab onslaught (link).
Tesla says it is preparing to launch its shiny gold Cybercab in new markets outside its home of Austin, Texas, in a bid to “literally take over every part of terrestrial transportation.”
Related: First impressions of CyberCab (link).
Rivian buys world model startup to accelerate self-driving ambitions (link).
Rivian has acquired Third Dimension, a U.K. startup founded by veterans of the gaming and AV industries that uses AI to turn images and videos into lifelike 3D worlds. Rivian isn’t getting into gaming, but it does want to leverage Third Dimension’s technology to turn real-world data into 3D worlds that can accelerate the development of its advanced driver-assistance features and the self-driving system for the robotaxis it plans to supply to Uber.
Related: ‘I went for a ride through NYC with Rivian's CEO, RJ Scaringe. We talked about autonomy’ (link).
Designing Charging Hubs for Autonomous Fleets
We are excited to partner with Terawatt this week, one of the leading charging infrastructure providers. To learn more about Terawatt’s nationwide real estate portfolio and track record of cutting cost per mile for AV fleet operators, reach out to Peter Cohen at peter@terawattinfrastructure.com
‘Starting today, Las Vegas travelers can catch their next flight at Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) via safe, reliable, and magical Waymo rides. Current Waymo riders in Las Vegas now have airport access, and we’ll gradually welcome more riders over time before opening to everyone’ (link).
The Most Polite Trucker in America Is a Driverless 18-Wheeler (link, no paywall).
Google Maps now offers Waymo-transit connection! (link).
Santa Monica moves toward deal to park Zoox robotaxis at Main Library (link).
Santa Monica expects the deal to generate at least $500,000 a year from Zoox simply paying to park its robotaxis at the Main Library. Zoox would charge the vehicles elsewhere.
Exclusive: Steve Cohen backs Hertz's robotaxi ambitions with $80M investment (link).
The rental car giant is establishing Oro Mobility as a standalone company and has secured $80 million in strategic equity funding from a group of investors including Cohen Private Ventures, the family office of New York Mets owner and Point72 founder Steve Cohen.
Exclusive / Waymo plans to quintuple its fleet (link).
The company, which currently has 4,000 cars, is looking to bring its total number to 8,000 by the end of the year and grow to 20,000 by the end of next year, according to people familiar with the matter.
Lucid Motors: Built in Arizona. Bound for the Bay. Another robotaxi shipment on the move as our fleet expands. Proud to keep delivering for our partners Uber and Nuro (link).
Gridwise Analytics Q2 AV Impact Report (link). Gridwise’s Brandon Sellers brought this up on our panel last week (link) in Austin at the Urban Autonomy Summit and it really stood out.
Uber’s take rate has actually gone down in AV cities compared to non-AV cities, which is a big win for consumers. More competition means lower prices for customers, while Gridwise’s prior data has also shown downward pressure on hourly driver earnings in several AV markets.
From Q2 2024 to Q2 2026, median platform fees per trip fell 13.8% across those cities combined. Nationwide, excluding AV cities, they rose 19.2%.
Unsupervised Tesla Robotaxi clips (link). Impressive!
Tesla says customers can add their own vehicles to the robotaxi fleet next year — will it happen? (link, no paywall).
According to Tesla VP for Autonomous Driving Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla owners will be able to add their own vehicles to the company’s robotaxi fleet in the second quarter of 2027
‘Halloween Waymo spotted’ (link).
Bot Auto taps Lenovo, Nvidia, pegs autonomy hardware at $50,000 (link).
Related: Inside Bot Auto’s Driverless Trucking Milestone with CEO Xiaodi Hou (link).
What else we're reading/listening to
Austin Urban Autonomy Summit 2026 Recap (link). Our latest recap pulls together the key takeaways from all three panels, covering the people and infrastructure needed to scale robotaxis, opportunities in autonomous trucking, and what it takes to demonstrate safety. Catch up on the discussion and watch the full panel recordings linked in it.
Scaling Driverless Trucks Safely with Aurora CSO Nat Beuse (link). Our latest podcast where we discuss Aurora’s safety case, lessons from fully driverless operations, and what changes as its fleet grows. We also discuss reliability, public trust and the hurdles to a federal framework for autonomous trucking, among other topics.
Unsupervised with Dave Ferguson: Giant Autonomous Machines with Bedrock Robotics’s Boris Sofman (link).
Related: The Road to Driverless Robotaxis with Nuro Co-CEO Dave Ferguson (link).
The Fast Charge by Tom Riley: Waymo targets millions in London ad blitz (link).
AV Events
“Join us for an evening with Aurora's senior leaders! Join Chris Urmson (Co-Founder & CEO), Michael Samples (VP of Engineering Map Technology), Drew Steedly (VP of Engineering, Autonomy Action) and Pedro Urbina (Sr Director of ML Data Engine) for an intimate, open-floor discussion at Aurora’s Seattle office on Wednesday, November 4” (link).
AVs/Humans behaving badly
‘Loud knocking sound when driving in an incline’ (link).
Tesla driver says he was asleep on FSD when he hit CHP car, 2 officers hurt (link). If FSD was engaged, this would be a major issue, both for how the system handled an obvious freeway closure and for the driver-monitoring system if the driver was really asleep.
CHP hasn’t released the Tesla model or the software version. And for now, the driver’s word is the only evidence FSD was on. Tesla’s vehicle logs will settle that.
‘My Waymo was covered in vomit. Guess how they made it right’ (link). [NSFW]
Tesla driver using Full Self-Driving struck and killed a man crossing I-80 (link, no paywall). This one seems hard to pin on FSD. The pedestrian walked onto a highway at 2:30 am and the Tesla reportedly braked and swerved before hitting him. We don’t know how the average human driver would have handled the same situation, but it seems like FSD responded appropriately.
Woman arrested after blocking delivery robot in Philadelphia confrontation (link).
Shout-outs
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Neat Jobs
Technical Product Manager, Development Vehicles at Wayve (link) via Rutvik Topkar.
Legal Counsel - Canada at Waymo (link) via Rabin Bhattacharya.
Research and Design partners at Waymo, via Megan Neese.
Project Manager – Autonomous Logistics at LOXO (link) via Lara Amini.
Job Moves
Nuro Appoints Rajiv Bhatia as Chief Product Officer to Drive Commercial Launches and Platform Expansion (link).
Devdatta Gangal: Rivian -> ? (link).
Jeff Chung: Meta -> Applied Intuition (link).
Trung Pham: NVIDIA -> Hyundai (link).
Until next week :)
-Harry