Coco’s New Delivery Robots Hit the Streets

Einride raises $113M PIPE, NTSB preliminary investigations into Waymo, and Bank of America upgrades Tesla

Top Stories of the Week

Coco’s new delivery robot is hitting the streets, literally, and without a human driver (link). Their next-generation autonomous delivery bot, Coco 2, is designed to go beyond the sidewalk and operate on streets and bike lanes where it’s legal and appropriate. It can reach speeds of up to 13 mph in those environments, which is much faster than its sidewalk pace, and it is built to stay reliable even in extreme weather conditions that often slow down human delivery. The new design also adds multiple compartments, up to six in total, that can open for different customers, allowing a single robot to handle several deliveries at once.

Coco 2 runs the latest version of Nvidia’s Jetson computing platform… It’s the same platform underpinning many of the robotics firms operating in the physical AI space, from safety-monitoring cameras in manufacturing spaces to general-purpose humanoids, said Amit Goel, Nvidia’s head of strategic robotics partnerships.

Related Interview: Autonomous Delivery Robots with Coco CEO Zach Rash (link).

Other Stuff

Self-driving truck startup Einride raises $113M PIPE ahead of public debut (link). Been a while since I’ve seen a mobility company raise via a PIPE. The oversubscribed $113M private investment in public equity comes ahead of the company’s planned public debut through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) and values the Swedish autonomous and electric freight startup at a $1.35 billion pre-money valuation, down from the $1.8B initially attached to the SPAC deal. Still, there appears to be solid investor appetite since the round exceeded their earlier $100 million target.

Einride is interesting because it is positioning itself as more of an end-to-end freight operating system than just a truck manufacturer. The company already operates around 200 electric heavy duty trucks for shippers like PepsiCo, Heineken, and GE Appliances across Europe, the U.S., and the UAE, while also developing its cab-less autonomous “eBot” trucks for the future. In addition to designing autonomous trucks and software, Einride also builds and manages charging infrastructure and runs its own fleet management and remote operations platform.

NTSB preliminary investigation into Waymo collision with child (link). One detail that stands out from the diagram is that the pedestrian appears to have entered the lane from the Waymo’s left but was struck near the vehicle’s front-right headlight. Hard to draw conclusions without the telemetry, but I still think it would be helpful if Waymo released the video and sensor data to show when the child was first detected and whether braking began as soon as the pedestrian became visible.

Bank of America upgrades Tesla, expecting it to “quickly become a leader in robotaxi services” (link).

Supervisors grill Waymo about 1,500 stalled cars during December blackout (link, no paywall).

Waymo’s fleet stopped 1,593 times for two minutes or more during the outage, according to company data shared with the California Public Utilities Commission last month. Waymo had to send staffers or tow trucks to retrieve 64 of its Jaguar I-PACE electric cars during the blackout. In two cases, city first responders had to get behind the wheel.

It’s still unclear to me what actually caused the 1,500+ stalls during the blackout after reading about the hearing. One thing that did stand out though: Waymo expects first responders to move stranded robotaxis in some situations, which city officials said effectively turns them into roadside assistance for the fleet. Not exactly a great look.

May Mobility’s Expanding Autonomous Footprint in Japan (link).

Jefferies analysts’ conclusions: “AVs still fall short on what matters most for adoption…. the interplay of price and ETA. However, with longer trip times and similar/higher prices (ex-Tesla in Austin), we think AVs have initially relied on hype to help drive adoption…” (link).

Robot turtles: Waymo’s next-gen cars could be buggy Hyundai EVs (link, no paywall).

Since the Ioniq 5 launched in 2021, it’s been showered with accolades…There’s just one problem: Owners — including me — say their Ioniq 5s keep failing. Drivers point to the integrated charging control unit, or ICCU, an electrical component that converts high-voltage charge to low-voltage charge. When it breaks, seemingly at random, cars can experience charging failures and power loss on the road, leaving them undriveable.

Ryan Transportation Partners with Bot Auto for Full Driverless Operations in Texas (link).

Tesla touts California robotaxis but does nothing to get permits (link).

Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina law professor and autonomous-driving expert who has consulted for the California DMV, said Tesla is implying that “they are ready and regulators are not,” while the reality is that “regulators are ready, and they are not.”

Waymo just expanded to Miami Beach and other ocean towns (link). Waymo’s service zone now covers 100 square miles, although there is still a waitlist for users who want to try the service.

You can actually buy this car with no steering wheel (link).

Waymo could expand to Virginia under new driverless car bill (link).

Pony.ai Achieves Gen-7 Robotaxi Unit Economics Breakeven in Shenzhen, Strengthening Path to Scalable Commercialization (link).

“The latest achievement in Shenzhen marks another important validation of our technology readiness and commercialization strategy,” said Dr. James Peng, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Pony.ai. “Reaching unit economics breakeven in two Tier-1 Chinese cities demonstrates that autonomous mobility is not only technically viable, but also economically sustainable at scale.”

Harbinger acquires autonomous driving company Phantom AI (link).

‘I went home for lunch and now I’m stuck at home (link).’ Maybe he should try calling an Uber?

What else we’re reading/listening to

Compound Interest from Semafor Business: Dara Khosrowshahi on robotaxi ‘mission control’ and Uber’s next billion-dollar business (link).

Inside Waymo’s Remote Assistance Program with Dr. Missy Cummings (link). My latest podcast episode where we focused on one of the most misunderstood pieces of the AV stack: remote operations. We broke down the difference between remote assistance and true teleoperation, why latency matters more than most people realize, common misconceptions around Waymo’s remote assistance model, and the safety implications of offshore remote operators, among many other topics. Here’s one of Dr. Cummings’ spicier takes from the episode (link), and it’s getting some love on Reddit.

Watch out for Monday’s episode of the TDD podcast featuring Ming Maa, Co-Founder and CEO of Moove AV, where we discuss what it takes to manage AV fleets - you won’t want to miss it. Subscribe now so your feed automatically updates.

AV Events

Zoox is showing off its robotaxi at The LINE Austin. From March 13 to 15, visitors can see the vehicle up close and sign up for their Austin waitlist (link).

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is hosting a National AV Safety Forum on March 10, 2026 at the USDOT Headquarters’ West Atrium in Washington, DC (link).

AVs/Humans behaving badly

‘Waymo stand-off’ (link). The third Waymo...lol.

NTSB: Human error prompted Waymo to pass stopped school bus in Austin (link). I’m liking these NTSB diagrams and descriptions. They are helpful for understanding the setup, especially since Waymo is not releasing video or sensor data.

In this situation, the Waymo vehicle initially did the right thing and stopped for the bus, but after contacting remote assistance it was incorrectly told the signals were not active and proceeded through, which resulted in a clear violation of Texas law.

But I’m not sure I blame Waymo entirely here. This looks like a pretty terrible location for a bus stop, right next to a busy multi lane 35 mph intersection. Technically, traffic in both directions has to stop even if they have a green light, which is not very intuitive. I would never teach any of my three kids to cross a street like this without a walk signal, so it seems odd to require traffic on the opposite side to stop for a bus here. The fact that several human drivers also passed the bus suggests the scenario itself may be confusing, not just the AV behavior.

‘Over the past couple of months I’ve been evaluating Rideshare use from both a travel mom and Child Passenger Safety perspective.’ (link).

‘A Waymo vehicle blocked traffic as first responders raced to the Austin bar mass shooting, where three were killed and 14 injured.’ (link). Quite unfortunate incident, but the county EMS chief said the errant Waymo had no impact on patient outcomes thankfully (link).

‘So, I almost got killed by a robot last week…’ (link).

‘This driverless Waymo car got so confused’ (link).

‘Blocking a bike lane’ (link).

‘Waymo’s Miami Emergency Protocol Failure Nearly Got Me Hit on MacArthur Causeway’ (link).

‘These Waymos are getting aggressive’ (link).

AVs behaving “goodly” :)

Nuro: Watch an autonomous passenger pick-up/drop-off maneuver in San Francisco’s busy North Beach neighborhood (link).

Waymo driving in snow (link).

Neat Jobs

Software Engineer at Einride (link) via Jonas Hatzenbühler.

AV Fleet Operations Associate (Day Shift) at Lyft (link) via Amber Lynn Stoppel.

Product Manager, In-Car Experience at Waymo (link) via Tyler Fox.

Engineering Manager, Autonomy Validation Platform & Pipelines at Zoox (link) via Christian Yang.

2026 Summer Intern, MS/PhD, ML Runtime and Deployment at Waymo (link) via Tracy F.

Staff ML Performance Engineer (Training Efficiency) at Wayve (link) via Paul Elvinger.

Here’s a full list of the jobs we’ve featured (link).

Job Moves

Chase Alexander: Software Engineer at Waymo (link).

Yasi Sedghani: Legal Director, Autonomous Mobility & Delivery Legal Team at Uber (link).

Cool Rides

‘My experience with a self driving car Waymo! 🚙’ (link).

‘Ride with Pony AI autonomous taxi. Very smooth ride - might be better than Waymo’ (link).

‘The ride in Waymo was not scary but exciting, the way the car manoeuvred the LA traffic and made it to the destination is an ode to human ingenuity, innovation and the never dying spirit of innovation and making lives better’ (link).

Shout-outs

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Until next week :)

-Harry