Welcome again to TechCrunch Mobility, your central hub for information and insights on the way forward for transportation. To get this in your inbox, enroll right here free of charge — simply click on TechCrunch Mobility!
In case you haven’t observed, Uber is all of a sudden in all places, at the very least in terms of autonomous autos. The corporate bought off Uber ATG, its in-house autonomous car growth unit, again in 2020. Uber shed quite a lot of its moonshots — though it maintained an fairness stake in all of them — so it may give attention to its core companies of supply and ride-hailing.
However Uber by no means gave up totally on AVs. It’s spent the previous two years locking up partnerships with dozens of autonomous car expertise firms throughout supply, drones, trucking, and robotaxis. It has taken a worldview, too, making agreements with Chinese language firms to launch robotaxis in Europe and the Center East, in addition to startups like U.Ok.-based Wayve.
And now there may be one other one with Rivian. The TL;DR of the deal is Uber will make an preliminary $300 million funding in Rivian and can purchase 10,000 absolutely autonomous R2 robotaxis forward of a deliberate rollout in San Francisco and Miami in 2028. Uber has the choice to purchase as much as 40,000 extra beginning in 2030. This fleet can be solely obtainable on Uber’s community.
Right here’s how I’m interested by this deal. Whereas the full deal may very well be as excessive as $1.25 billion, Uber’s preliminary outlay is comparatively small. And the chance ratio is closely weighted towards Rivian. It’s additionally the one deal that Uber has made wherein the corporate is the developer of the self-driving system and the car producer.
Rivian hasn’t began producing the R2 SUV but, nor has it examined and deployed a self-driving system designed for robotaxis. To lift the hurdle even increased, the robotaxi is meant to be in-built Rivian’s Georgia manufacturing facility, which remains to be beneath development.
And the EV maker has already made at the very least one sacrifice in hopes of pulling it off. Rivian mentioned it now not expects to satisfy its profitability purpose in 2027 due to how a lot cash it’s spending on its autonomy efforts.
Techcrunch occasion
San Francisco, CA
|
October 13-15, 2026
In our e-newsletter, we had a ballot asking, Are the dangers too excessive for Rivian? Join right here to get Mobility in your inbox and let your voice be heard in our polls!
A little bit fowl
Talking of Uber, a bit of fowl hinted that the ride-hailing firm might need been in talks with Rivian for its robotaxi deal for fairly a very long time. One particular person instantly accustomed to each firms informed me a deal like this wouldn’t occur in a single day. After I requested for extra specifics, I acquired a query in return: “Does RJ strike you as somebody who has a strategic horizon that brief?” Touché!
Bought a tip for us? Contact Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or by way of Sign at kkorosec.07, or e-mail Sean O’Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com.
Offers!
Like Uber, Nvidia is in all places. Or at the very least desires to be. The corporate has made quite a few investments — both direct money injections or in-kind chip offers — in autonomous car expertise firms. And it’s additionally locking up partnerships with automakers — as we noticed this week throughout its GTC convention — in a bid to promote its autonomous car growth platform referred to as Nvidia Drive Hyperion.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang introduced onstage offers — either new or expanded — with BYD, Geely, Hyundai, and Nissan for its AV growth platform. GM, Mercedes-Benz, and Toyota have already signed offers with Nvidia to make use of the platform.
Nvidia has been making offers with automakers for years, however the tempo and specificity of AVs is price noting.
“The ChatGPT second of self-driving vehicles has arrived. We now know we may efficiently autonomously drive vehicles,” Huang mentioned throughout his GTC keynote, noting that altogether the 4 automakers construct 18 million vehicles annually.
Different offers that acquired my consideration …
Superior Navigation, an Australian startup creating navigation and autonomous methods, raised $110 million in a Collection C funding spherical led by Airtree Ventures, with strategic participation from Quadrant Personal Fairness and the Nationwide Reconstruction Fund Company (NRFC).
Arc Boat Firm, the Los Angeles electrical boat startup, raised $50 million in a Collection C funding spherical from Eclipse, a16z, Menlo Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, Crucial Ventures, and Offline Ventures.
BusRight, the varsity bus routing and expertise startup, raised more than $30 million in a spherical led by Volition Capital.
Jeff Bezos is reportedly elevating $100 billion for a brand new fund that may give attention to shopping for up firms in main industrial sectors — like automotive and aerospace. The plan is to then modernize these firms utilizing AI fashions developed by Bezos’ new startup Challenge Prometheus.
Rivr, a Zurich-based autonomous robotics startup recognized for its stair-climbing supply robotic, was acquired by Amazon. Phrases of the deal weren’t disclosed.
Trevor Milton, the founding father of the now-bankrupt electrical truck startup Nikola who was pardoned by President Trump, is making an attempt to boost $1 billion for AI-powered planes.
Zenobē Power has purchased Revolv, a San Francisco-based fleet charging startup, for an undisclosed quantity.
Notable reads and different tidbits
A cyberattack on U.S. car breathalyzer firm Intoxalock has left drivers throughout the US stranded and unable to start out their autos.
Kodiak has expanded business autonomous freight operations to the Dallas-El Paso hall. That is the corporate’s second main route and a core a part of its community growth roadmap, according to COO Michael Wiesinger.
The Nationwide Freeway Visitors Security Administration upgraded its investigation into the efficiency of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software program in low-visibility situations. The probe has now been escalated to an “engineering evaluation,” its highest degree of scrutiny and a required step earlier than the company tells an organization to problem a recall.
Yet one more factor …
I discussed in final week’s version to maintain a watch out for my interview with Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe. We coated quite a lot of floor and I discovered his feedback about robotics significantly fascinating. To summarize, Scaringe thinks firms are approaching industrial robotics all flawed. His new startup, Thoughts Robotics, goes to do issues otherwise and focus extra on robotic arms and steering away from constructing robots that may do again flips.
As Scaringe informed me: “I believe what’s missed in industrial [robotics] and this is without doubt one of the issues we actually see clearly, is the work occurs with the arms. So, the arms are very, crucial. Every little thing else, from a robotic system standpoint, is to get the arms to the appropriate place. And so the flexibility for the robots to do actually advanced motions, like, let’s say, like a again flip, that truly simply means the robotic has quite a lot of pointless complexity in it for the overwhelming majority of duties.” You may learn the interview right here.
