This week’s edition is brought to you by MOIA America — a mobility technology provider helping agencies, operators, and businesses launch, manage, and scale autonomous driving ecosystems.
Top Story of the Week
DoorDash reveals launch timeframe for delivery drones in Northern California (link).
Trial runs of the drone deliveries will begin in the coming months in Northern California in partnership with national restaurant brands including Chipotle and Popeyes. The drone delivery program aims to combat the hardest part of autonomous delivery: the first and last ten feet. Picking up an order from a kitchen and laying it safely on the customer’s doorstep are the most challenging steps in the food delivery process, according to DoorDash.
Related: Drone Delivery Is Finally Starting To Scale. Who Is Best Positioned To Win? (link).
Other Stuff
Stellantis and Wayve to show hands-free Fiat and Maserati (link).
Stellantis has fitted Wayve’s AI driving software to development versions of the Fiat 500e and the Maserati Grecale, which will give hands-free demonstration rides at the Wave by Vento event in Turin from 7 to 9 October 2026
Related: Wayve CEO Alex Kendall: Building Scalable, Mapless and End to End AI (link).
Robotaxi operators will face fines for blocking first responders (link). Thirty minutes feels like a pretty generous window if an AV is actually blocking police, fire or EMS. The remote driver provision is also narrower than it sounds: it only applies when a human can directly control the vehicle from afar. Waymo says its remote staff provide assistance while the AV system stays in control, so its overseas remote assistance teams wouldn’t appear to be affected by this requirement.
California’s new law will allow AV operators to be fined if a vehicle blocks first responders for more than 30 minutes, although the DMV can set shorter response-time requirements. Under the law, AV developers can also only employ remote drivers who are based in the United States and hold a U.S. driver’s license. The requirement is aimed at concerns around how companies use remote operations when autonomous vehicles run into trouble.
‘A buddy of mine just FaceTimed me from inside an Aurora autonomous truck, completely alone with no Aurora rep onboard, and says it’s been doing a great job so far.’ (link).
Minneapolis City Council passes divisive ordinance requiring human drivers in driverless vehicles (link, no paywall).
Along with requiring any company running a robotaxi service to hold a city license, it would require a “human safety monitor” in the driver’s seat with immediate access to “steering, braking, and acceleration.” It wouldn’t go into effect until October 2027.
Kodiak Picks Dallas-Houston For Driverless Long-Haul Launch (link).
Kodiak said it is now consistently completing end-to-end freight runs between its Lancaster, Texas, hub and Houston without human intervention, while continuing to target an unsupervised long-haul launch by the end of 2026.
Related: IKEA Picks Kodiak for Driverless Freight Rollout (link).
By the numbers: Waymo logs big miles in Philadelphia (link).
Aurora CFO says 30,000 driverless trucks by 2030 isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds (link). I’ll take the under on that one.
Aurora told investors last week that it expects to have more than 30,000 self-driving trucks on the road generating $5 billion in annual revenue by the end of 2030 — an audacious plan considering it expects to end 2026 with just 200 driverless trucks and an $80 million revenue run rate.
Powering the Future of Autonomous Mobility for Cities and Businesses, Today
MOIA America develops autonomous mobility solutions designed to help transform how people move through cities and communities. The MOIA brand’s turnkey autonomous mobility platform combines a purpose-built autonomous vehicle, an integrated self-driving hardware and software system, and a Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) platform that enables operators to launch and scale autonomous transportation services. MOIA America is currently testing in U.S. markets, including Los Angeles, Austin, and Orlando.
‘Waymo just registered 21 more autonomous vehicles with the Texas DMV—1,154 now on the state registry, up from 1,133’ (link).
‘Rivian gave a clearer look at its robotaxi business model: Uber and other rideshare partners would buy the R2s, then pay Rivian an ongoing software licensing fee tied to vehicle usage. The Uber deal is also non-exclusive, meaning Rivian could license its autonomy stack to other rideshare or OEM partners too’ (link).
‘As a self styled unpaid Waymo influencer… I was very excited to get my first ojai - excellent!’ (link).
Related: Why Waymo Replaces Nannies and Parents, Not Uber Drivers - Sam Lessin (link).
Robotaxi Firms Are Buying Up the Garages Before the Votes (link).
Chinese software firm Momenta wins Peugeot and Jeep deal (link).
‘Wow. I spent the entire weekend obsessing over this paper. It’s the closest analysis I’ve seen to the Aseon thesis. In a modelled fleet of 1,700 robotaxis in SF, each vehicle spends 4hrs/day idle on the curb’ (link).
Verne CEO Marko Pejković: It was great spending some time with Dara, Andrew and the whole Uber team so they could experience what we’re building in Verne with our partners Pony.ai (link).
What else we're reading/listening to
Drone Delivery Is Finally Starting To Scale. Who Is Best Positioned To Win? (link). Our latest guest article from Eduardo Rojas, a former founding member of Uber’s Autonomous Mobility & Delivery team, breaks down who’s leading today, why Amazon and Walmart have an advantage, and what it will take to get drone deliveries under $4 and to your door in 20 minutes.
From Trucks to Robotaxis: Waabi’s One Driver with CEO Raquel Urtasun (link). My latest podcast where we discussed Waabi’s path to fully driverless trucking, how its technology transfers across vehicle platforms, its partnership with Volvo, and its plans to deploy robotaxis with Uber, among other topics.
The AV Market Strategist by Daniel Abreu Marques: Waymo’s 54% Fleet Growth in Texas & Wayve signs Mercedes-Benz (link).
Farzad podcast featuring Dave Lee: Tesla’s Dumbest Decision Might Be Its Best (link).
AV Events
TaskUs: We’re excited to join Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association’s Autonomy Summit 26 [October 7, 2026 - Austin Texas] to discuss how regulatory frameworks, safety innovation and operational efficiency come together to scale autonomous fleets safely (link).
‘We’re pleased to announce our first lineup of speakers who will be featured at the Autonomous Vehicle (AV) Workforce Summit, taking place on Monday, October 19, in Columbus, Ohio!’ (link).
The Austin edition of our Urban Autonomy Summit is only two weeks away! Join us October 14 for an afternoon of panels, drinks and conversations with the people building the future of autonomy. Space is limited, so apply to attend here.
AVs/Humans behaving badly
‘Zoox in Las Vegas had troubles crossing the intersection and when it stood there stopped, it got rear ended by a distracted human driver. The distracted driver ended up in the hospital’ (link).
Shout-outs
Big thanks to TDD readers at Matter and to Legouix J for referring new subscribers. If there’s someone you think would enjoy TDD, feel free to forward this email or use the referral button below, and we’ll make sure to shout out your company.
Neat Jobs
2027 Summer Intern, MS/PhD, AI-driven ML Performance Engineering Intern at Waymo (link) via Yongming Shen.
Director, Autonomous Vehicle Partnerships at Moove (link) via Arun Victor.
Principal Software Engineer Team Lead - Partner Systems & Integrations at Motional (link) via Ping Seng N.
Research Scientist, World Model Post-Training at Waymo (link) via Brandyn White.
Validation Engineer, Feature Integration at Zoox (link) via Rigo Rodriguez.
Autonomous Vehicle Operations Manager at Moove (link) via Tim Blackwell.
Site Reliability Engineering, Technical Lead Manager at Waymo (link) via Duncan Winn.
Job Moves
Emanuele M: Woven by Toyota -> Applied Intuition (link).
Yusuf Emre Samur: Mercedes-Benz AG -> Wayve (link).
Jerry A. Zhao: Bonsai Robotics -> Bedrock Robotics (link).
Until next week :)
-Harry